Arkansas race riot

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The Elaine Riot.

THE ELAINE (ARK.) RIOT

The press dispatches of October 1, 1919, heralded the news
that another race riot had taken place the night before in
Elaine, Ark., and that it was started by Negroes who had
killed some white officers in an altercation.

Later on the country was told that the white people of
Phillips County had risen against the Negroes who started
this riot and had killed many of them, and that this orgy of
bloodshed was not stopped until United States soldiers from
Camp Pike had been sent to the scene of the trouble.

Columns were printed telling of an organization among
Xegro farmers in this little burg who were banded together
for the purpose of killing all the white people, the organiza-
tion being known as the Farmers' Household Union. As a
result of these charges over one hundred Negro farmers and
laborers, men and women, were arrested and jailed in Helena,
Ark., the county seat of Phillips County. One month later
they were indicted and tried for murder in the first degree and
the jury foum them guilty after six minutes of deliberation.
Twelve were ^ntenced to die in the electric chair — six on
December 27tL and six on January 2nd, and seventy-five of
thein were sent to the penitentiary on sentences ranging from
five to twenty-one years!

Several national bodies among colored people, notably the
Equal Rights League, sent letters of protest to Governor
Brough, but press dispatches reported that the governor
refused to interfere, because he believed the men had received
justice. Thereupon, the Chicago branch of the Equal Rights
Leigue sent telegrams to Senators Medill McCormick and
Cuiftis, chairman on committee on race riots and Congressman
Martin B. Madden asking the federal government to take some
act ion to protect these men and see that they got justice.

446286

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

The People's Movement, Chicago, 111., on December 7th
unanimously passed the following resolution offered by the
writer and sent it to Gov?rnor B rough :

Whereas, The press dispatches bring the news that twelve
Negroes have been condemned in Helena, Ark., to die in the
electric chair for the alleged killing of five white men after a
deliberation of eight minutes by the jury which found them
guilty, and

Whereas, It would appear that this riot arose over a deter-
mination of those Negroes to form a union for the protection
of their cotton crop ; therefore, be it

Resolved, That we demand of Governor B rough that he
exert his influence to see that those men are given a new trial
or chance to present their cases to the Supreme Court. Hun-
dreds of Negroes have left Arkansas because of unjust treat-
ment, and we pledge ourselves to use our influence to bring
thousands away if those twelve men die in the electric chair
Arkansas needs our labor but we will never rest till every
Negro leaves the state unless those men are given justice.

Very soon thereafter the governor of Arkansas called a
conference of white and colored citizens in Little Rock, Ark.
He learned from them that his own colored people were dis-
satisfied and wanted these men to have a chance in the Su-
preme Court. He promised to exert his influence to secure
this and appointed an inter-racial committee to adjudicate
matters between the races.

The Chicago Defender of that same week, December 13th,
contained a letter of appeal by the writer to colored people
throughout the country to raise funds to help these con-
demned men carry their cases to the Arkansas Supreme
Court, also to the United States Supreme Court if necessarv.
Almost immediately following its appearance, donations were
received by the writer from our people, and the tone, of the
letters was splendid in the expressed determination to help
these poor men get justice. Other organizations to help were
formed, lawyers were engaged, a stay of execution granted and
proceedings begun for an appeal to the Supreme Court of
Arkansas. Six of the men had been sentenced to be electro-
cuted December 27th and six on January 2nd.

During this time the following letter was received by the
author of this pamphlet :

Little Rock, Ark., Dec. 30, 1919.
Dear Mrs. Wells-Barnett :

This is one of the 12 mens which is sentenced to dehth
speaking to you on this day and thanking you for your great
speach you made throughout the country in the Chicago De-
fender paper. So I am thanking you to the very highest alnd

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

hope you will do all you can for your collord race. Because
we are innercent men, we was not handle with justice at all in
I'hillips County Court. It is prejidice that the white people
had agence we Negroes. So I thank God that thro you, our
Negroes are looking into this truble, and thank the city of
Chicago for what it did to start things and hopen to hear from
you all soon. Now Mrs. Wells if you have any mail for us

*end it to if there be enny secret in it.

So I will close with much love from all to Chicago, 111. Please
pray for us, I am a Christian man. Please Chicago let us hear
from you at enny time.

In response to this cry from Macedonia, the writer took the
train for Little Rock, Ark., went to the address given in the
letter and talked with some of the wives of the twelve, then
went to the penitentiary and spent the day interviewing those
men. I wish every one whose contribution enabled me to
make this investigation could have seen the light which came
on the faces of these men when I told them who I was ! Again
they sent thanks to every one who had responded to my
Defender letter of December 13, 1919. They had been in
prison in Helena, Ark., since the first week in October; they
had been beaten many times and left for dead While there,
given electric shocks, suffocated with drugs, and suffered every
cruelty and torment at the hands of their jailers to make them
confess to a conspiracy to kill white people. Besides this a
mob from the outside tried to lynch them. During all that two
months of terrible treatment and farcical trial, no word of
help had come from their own people until a copy of the Chi-
cago Defender, December 13th, fell into their hands!

No wonder that during this time of terror they composed
and sung in heart-breaking tones this song :

I Stand and Wring My Hands and Cry

By Ed Ware.

I used to have some loving friends to walk and talk with me,
But now I am in trouble, they have turned their backs on me ;
They just laugh me to scorn and will not come nigh,
And I just stand and wring my hands and cry.

And I just stand and wring my hands and cry,
And I just stand and wring my hands and cry, Oh Lord !
Sornetimes I feel like I ain't got no friends at all,
Aim! I just stand and wring my hands and cry.

Chorus.

6

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

Sometimes I like to be in company and again I want to be
alone,

With my enemies all crushing me and confusion in my home ;

I then fold my arms and look to the skies,

And I just stand and wring my hands and cry. — Chorus.

My heart is overwhelmed with sorrow,
My eyes are melted down in tears ;
But I have called to the God of Heaven,
And I know He always hears. — Chorus.

This they sang in the most mournful tones ever heard.
Their wives and mothers and children were there spending
Sunday with them, and talking through the bars, trying to
encourage them. They sang and prayed together and were so
grateful to the warden for his kind treatment of them. They
exhorted each other to be faithful to the end, expressed their
innocence of wrong-doing and readiness to die if it was God's
will they should do so. I told them to pray to live and have
faith to believe their God would open their prison doors as
were those of Paul and Silas and to pray and believe that they
would go free ; that He would work on the hearts of those who
held the scales of justice and to believe those prayers would
be answered. Thousands of persons on the outside were pray-
ing for them and doing what they could to help, and for them
to have faith to believe that the great state of Arkansas would
undo the wrong that had been done to them. I said they
should pray daily that God would give the authorities the
wisdom to realize the wrong that had been done, and the
courage to right that wrong. I earnestly believe such prayers
will strengthen the hands of the white people of the state who
want to do" the right thing.

CHAPTER II.

THEIR CRIME
The terrible crime these men had committed was to organ-
ize their members into a union for the purpose of getting the
market price for their cotton, to buy land of their own and to
employ a lawyer to get settlements of their accounts with
their white landlords. Cotton was selling for more than ever
before in their lives. These Negroes believed their chance
had come to make some money for themselves and get out
from under the white landlord's thumb.

Phillips County got plenty Negro labor to till the land and
they toiled with a will to raise the cotton crops of 1919, which
would make them independent at last. Most 'of these men
and their families had worked for years "on shares and had
come out every year in debt or just barely out. The price of
cotton had been low, and the landlord who furnished the land
and supplies saw to it that the Negro laborer remained in his
clutches from years to year. Always the owner or agent who
rents the land owns a general store or opens an account for
the tenant where he must trade and pay the prices charged or
eet no food and supplies for himself family or hired hands
i he season begins in March and lasts till the cotton is picked
and ginned in October and November. So that for the period
of nine months the cropper is dependent on the landlord for
supplies. He receives no money until cotton is sold and settle-
ments are made. . -

When cotton is ready to be marketed, the landlord simply
tells the cropper what his bill for the year is and what he will
allow him for his crop. As a rule the bill for supplies is almost
always greater than the amount due the hardworking Negro
and his family, and he has not been able to help himself. He
must stay on the farm another year or be turned adrift to go
to work on another farm under the same conditions. If he
leaves in debt the laws of the state make it a penal offense.
Thousands of Negro farmers have worked under this eco-
nomic slavery for years. * .

The colored men who went to war for this democracy
returned home determined to emancipate themselves from the
slavery which took all a man and his family could earn, left

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

him in debt, gave him no freedom of action, no' protection for
his life or property, no education for his children, but did give
him Jim Crow cars, lynching and disfranchisement. If they
could get all the farmers in that neighborhood to join an
organization they could employ a lawyer to look after settle-
ments at the end of the year; they could create a treasury and
buy a tract of land for themselves; they could get all the
farmers to hold their cotton for higher prices.

Is it any wonder the idea spread like wild-fire? The Pro-
gressive farmers and Household Union of America had been
revived the year before, and when Robert L. Hill came among
them with the plan the meetings were crowded with men ana
women bringing their money to join. There is not a word in
the constitution and by-laws of this order about conspiracy
to murder white people, as will be seen by the reader of this
book.

It is most interesting to note that this union was first
organized under Act of Congress in 1865, fifty-five years ago ;
was revised and reorganized in 1897 ; and revised and applied
by Robert L. Hill and others in 1918. It was ratified and
incorporated under orders of the Supreme Court of Arkansas
in 19i8 at Little Rock, Ark. The men who are now awaiting
the verdict of the Supreme Court on their sentence of elec-
trocution were working under a charter permitting them to
organize granted by that same Supreme Court !

Robert Hill had organized under this constitution a lodge
at Hoop Spur and one at Elaine, Ark. The white farmers,
land owners and cotton brokers heard about those meetings
and when the following circular was sent out by the union
naturally they became uneasy and decided to take some action :

Don't Get Excited

Hold your cotton until the World's Cotton Conference is
over October 13, 14, 15, 16.

Let us see what Uncle Sam means. Uncle Sam can help
you when nobody else can.

World's Cotton Conference
There will be more than 1,800 delegates to the World's
Cotton Conference in New Orleans, October 13-16. Not on'y
will there be delegates there from all parts of the south, but
all parts of the world. Hundreds of delegates from twenty
countries abroad are now on the way. There was a time mat
ginners begged the farmers to haul away cotton seed and get
them out the way, but today the cotton seed industry has
reached to more than $4,000,000,000 annually. This will ertter
largely into this conference showing the growing needs (for

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

cotton seed products. For the foreign delegates it is agreed
that landing on American soil be made in New York and then
trams made up to convey them to New Orleans from New
York City.

That was all, but it was a Declaration of Economic Inde-
pendence, and the first united blow for economic liberty struck
by the Negroes of the South! That was their crime and it
had to be avenged.

But why was this movement a crime? Because "cotton is
king" of the agricultural products of the South. With cotton
.-oiling for 45 to 50 cents per pound — the highest price since
the Civil War — it meant that Negroes were in a fair way to
become independent and it was not to the interest of the
white landowners to let them do so. Ed Ware, one of the most
prosperous men there, had already offered two bales of cot-
ton for sale. Ware was secretary of the Hoop Spur lodge, and
he had already refused to sell for 24 cents per pound, or 33
cents. He was then refused a settlement of his account at the
store. He had gone to Helena to give a lawyer his case. On
his return home rumors were flying that the white people were
going to lynch him for doing this. This was Saturday, three
days before the riot.

The United States is the greatst cotton producing country
in the world. Of the 17,410,000 bales of cotton produced in
1918 in the whole world 11,818,000 bales came from the
United States. With the exception of the little grown in Cali-
fornia, these twelve million bales — more than two-thirds of all
t he cotton raised in the world — were produced by the Negro
labor of the South ! Without the Negro there would be no
cotton. The South wants the Negro to produce this cotton
but not to share in its benefits.

With cotton selling at 45 and 50 cents a pound, a bale of
cotton averaging 500 pounds would bring $250. Five bales of
cotton would bring $1,250. No padding of accounts nor infla-
tion of prices could use all that money for supplies and leave
the Negro in debt and subjection. Another way must be
found to do this, and keep the Negro's wealth from him.

CHAPTER III

THE RIOT

Tuesday, September 30th, the people gathered in their
church at Hoop Spur to hold a meeting of the lodge. The
place was crowded with men, women and children. Those
who hadn't paid dues and become members were anxious to
do so. A peaceful law-abiding hard-working group in their
own church, attending strictly to their own business, about
two hundred of them. Suddenly at 11 o'clock at night with-
out warning a volley of shots are fired into this free assem-
bly. The lights go out and those who are not kille^ <>r
wounded get away as quickly as possible. One white man,
W. A. Adkins, is killed out in front of this church, whether
by the men he is with or the guards out in front will prob-
ably never be known.

No one knows how many of these peaceable unoffending
Negroes were killed by this volley as the persons who did
this dastardly deed burned the church down the next day
so no bullet holes in walls, broken windows or dead bodies of
Negroes would show the conspiracy of whites to kill black-
people. Had this been a conspiracy of Negroes to kill whites,
they would not have started in by killing their own members,
break up their own meeting, nor burn their own church.
They would have been in or near some white assembly hall
or home working mischief. There would be more evidence of
the conspiracy to kill whites than the single body of W. A.
Adkins found dead beside the automobile which brought him
to the Negro church to disturb a Negro meeting and commit
murder. Some excuse was necessary for their action, and the
persons capable of planning and executing such a terrible
deed were not above furnishing that excuse for their action.
Or Will Adkins may have been killed accidentally by the
men he was with. One of the Negro guards at the church
declares he heard one of the white men say, "We are killing
our own men."

It is because that one white man was killed in front of the
Negro church at 11 o'clock that night that Frank Moore and
eleven other Negroes are in the Arkansas penitentiary con-
demned to die. Nothing in the record shows he had any busi-

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

11

ness there; he was clearly a trespasser, for every Negro in
that church agrees that without warning — while they were
all in the church — a volley of bullets was hred in among them.
Of those white men who were firing into the church without
cause Will Adkins was one. If it had been clearly proven that
he was killed by a bullet fired by the Negro guards on the
outside, it was because of and in response to an attack made
on the church they were there to guard. Nowhere in this land
would an unprejudiced jury sentence a man to death for guard-
ing and protecting his property and loved ones from unpro-
voked attack!

The other white man mentioned in the record, Clinton Lee,
met his death next day while he and hundreds of other white
men were chasing and murdering every Negro they could
find, driving them from their homes and stalking them in the
woods and fields as men hunt wild beasts. They were fin-
ishing up the job they began the night before. As a group
of Negroes ran before the mob two shots were fired from a
rifle one of them carried, and Clinton Lee fell dead. For
his death five of the twelve men sentenced are awaiting death
by electrocution. Yet no man in all this "land of the free and
home of the brave" will say that a man is not justified in fir-
ing back on other men who are after him armed with shot-
guns to take his life !

Both these white men for whose death there men were
found guilty of murder in the first degree and sentenced to
death were in the attacking parties with crowds of other white
men. If there was any conspiracy, it would seem to be among
white men to kill and drive away Negroes.

Why? The Negroes had made their crop. Every one of
the two hundred Negroes condemned and killed had picked
or was gathering in his year's crop of cotton and corn ! The
labor needed to plow the ground, plant the seed chop the
cotton and "lay it by" had been furnished by their toil. Some
of the landlords drove the Negroes off the land after this had
been done by refusing to feed them longer and forcing them
to leave their crop before the cotton was ready to pick. But
cotton was now ready to pick and some of it had been picked
by October 1st. It had been ginned and was ready for market
and the Negro due to get the reward of his toil and white men
determined to reap the value of it. What they could not do
lawfully they did unlawfully with the aid of public sentiment
and the mob. They are now enjoying the result of these Ne-
goes* labor, while the Negroes are condemned to die or stay
in prison twenty-one years. The wives and children of the
white men who committed this crime and robbed these Ne-
groes are riding in automobiles, living in comfortable homes.

12 THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

enjoying good food and fine clothes. The wives and child, =
of these Negroes are wandering from place to place, homeless,
penniless, ragged and starving, depending on public charity.

CHAPTER IV.

THEIR CASE STATED

In this chapter is given the statements of these earnest,
hard-working God-fearing men whose only ambition was to
be good citizens and get on in the world. Ed Ware, who was
secretary of the Progressive Farmers' Household Union, had
120 acres in cultivation. He owned a Ford car and while the
crops were laid by, drove his car daily to Helena, thirty miles
away, and made money carrying passengers. He says :

Ed Ware's Statement.

"On September 26, 1919, my merchants, Jackson & Long-
necker, came to buy some cotton 1 had just ginned and offered
me 24 cents and then 33 cents for it. 1 refused to take it, and
they said they were going to take the cotton at that price. I
rejected their offer and said I'd take my cotton to Helena to
sell. They then said they were going to mob me, but I was
warned about it. So when they tried to fool me into their
store so they could get me I refused to go in and kept out of
their way. On the 29th I went to Helena and gave my busi-
ness over to an attorney so I would not have to deal with
them. At the same time I went to see what cotton was selling
at and found that Woolen & Davidson were paying 44^2 cents
for short cotton."

About the trouble which happened the next night Ed
W r are says:

"On the 30th of September, 1919, we met in a regular
meeting and while sitting attending to our business about 11
o'clock that night, some automobiles were heard to stop north
of the church and in just a few minutes they began snooting
in the church and did kill some people in the church (which
they set afire and burned them up in it the next morning).
Then about ISO armed men came over to my place and before
they got over there the news reached us stating that they
were coming over there to kill me and all of the other Negroes
that belonged to that union and then I began to look out for
myself. I went out in my field about 200 yards from my house,
sitting there talking to two other men about the threats that
I had just received. I happened to look up and I saw a Negro
by the name of Kid Collins running down the road in front
of my house and followed by a crowd of white men. The

Negro and all of the white men were armed with guns and
they had almost surrounded my house when the old man,
Charley Robinson, and Isaac Bird and myself began to run.
The old man was crippled and could not run and they shot him
down and took him up from there and carried him and put
him in my wife's bed and let him stay there four days. Then
they took the country broadcast and began to shoot down
everything they saw like a Negro. 1 lost all of my household
goods and 121 acres of cotton and corn, two mules, one horse,
une Jersey cow and one farm wagon and all farming tools and
harness and eight head of hogs, 135 chickens and one Ford car.
This is a true report."

E. D. Hicks' Statement.
"On October 1, 1919, after the trouble the night before in
the church, they were after all the colored people to kill
them, so we ran into the swamp. I had 100 acres of land,
rented from Stanley and Moore Bros. I had a good crop of
cotton and corn on the whole place. My brother, Frank
Hicks, worked about thirty acres of it in cotton and corn and
1 worked the rest. 1 bought four mules and wagon and farm-
ing tools and all of my wife's clothes and they took all that
from me in that trouble. Now this is a true report from
Frank and E. D. Hicks."

Joseph Fox's and Albert Giles' Statement.
"On October 1st we saw about 150 armed white men com-
ing to our house and we left the house and ran on down into
the woods and carried our sister down in the woods with us
and they came and hunted us out and they shot at the women
and killed three men and wounded Albert Giles and Alfred
Banks and Joe Fox. They were so thick around us, they
killed one white man, and we heard them say, "We are killing
our own men," and they went to our house and took every-
thing that was there. We do not know how the shooting
started that night, because we were not there. We got the
news the next day that they were going to kill every Negro
they saw."

John Martin's Statement.
"I was at Hoop Spur Church that night to lodge meeting.
I do know that four or five automobiles full of white men
came about fifty yards from the church and put the lights
out, then started shooting in the church with about 200 head
of men, women and children. I was on the outside of the
church and saw this for myself. Then I ran after they started
firing in on the church. I don't know if anybody got killed at
all. I went home and stayed home that night, then the white

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

15

people was sending word that they was going to kill all the
black people, then I run back in the woods and hid two days
then the soldiers came then, I made it to them. I was carried
to Elaine and put in the school house and I was there eight
days. Then I was brought to Helena and put in jail and
whipped near to death and was put in an electric chair to make
me lie on other Negroes. It w r as not the union that brought
this trouble; it was our crops. They took everything I had,
twenty-two acres of cotton, three acres of corn. All that was
taken from me and my people. Also all my household goods.
Clothes and all. All my hogs, chickens and everything my
people had. I was whipped twice in jail. These white people
know that they started this trouble. This union was only for
a blind. We were threatened before this union was there
to make us leave our crops."

Alfred Banks* Statement.

"I was at Hoop Spur church on that night to union meet-
ing and do know that the white people came about fifty yards
ot that church and got out of the cars and started to shoot in
the church on the Negroes. It was four or five cars of white
men. I was on the outside of the church when these white men
stopped and put the car lights out, then started to shoot into
the chuch. Then 1 ran with some of the rest of the people.
1 went home and stayed in the bushes until the soldiers came.
"Then 1 was taken to Elaine and put in the schoolhouse and I
was there about six days. I was brought to Helena jail and
whipped near to death to make me lie on myself and the others.
1 was whipped three times in jail, also was put in an electric
chair in Helena jail and shocked. I have the scars on my body
to show now. Now I am sentenced to death. I did not kill
anybody. The white people started the trouble themselves.
We all were driven from our crops before this trouble started.
Nine families had been driven from the place, I was on before
this trouble started and several more were driven off other
places. It was not the union made this trouble ; it was for our
crops. I was working thirty-two acres of cotton and eight
acres of corn. All that was taken from me. Also one acre
truck patch. All my hogs and all my household goods from
us. All my clothes were taken and burned up. All I did in
the time of this trouble was run to save my life and others.
I saw when these white men came and started their dirt in
that church."

William Wardlow's Statement.

"I do know that it was four or five automobile loads of
white men did come, about forty-five or fifty yards from
Hoop Spur church on the night of September 30, 1919, where

16 THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

we were in union service that night and did shoot and kill

?oa m d e w°l efth^^ 065 - 1 W " ° Ut £ fr ° nt ° f the church j " S
road when these men came up in these cars and started shoot-

-hfiJ $u*\? a *£? othcr P e °P le both women, men and
children. VVhen the white men started that work I broke and
ran away. I saw them when they made the first shot. I went
™ r° d f and StayC , d aH ni * ht - 1 sta y ed ""til the soldiers

*hhnoZ\ C T\ t0 th T- I had eight women and children
v.ith me to hide, keep them from getting killed The white

Pn e ; P t l,T uTu d 5," thf0Ugh the C0Unt y that the y were^om-
mg to kill all the Negroes they could find. The soldiers took
me to Elaine and I was put in the school-house and they kept
me there seven days Then they brought me on to HeleL jail
and we was whipped like dogs to make stories on each other.
1 did not kill no one. I did not have a gun. Then after my
trial was over m six minutes, some of the white men came
from Elaine to the jail and told me if I would put something
on some more Negroes they would turn me free, if I would
call just two or three men's names that they did call to me
I would not do so, because it would be a story and I will not

w»,T ° ne - WaS - whi PP ed twi « in jail. Near to death.
While they were whipping me they put some kind of dope
n my nose; also I was put in an electric chair and shocked
to make me tell a story on other men.

"This is my crop. I was working sixteen acres of land
hiteen in cotton, one in corn. I was charged up for four
months groceries, $226,25, but I did not owe that much So
a 1 that was taken from my wife and she was driven off the

1 ii J> -, e ,- e W ^ S ° nly three in the famil y- Thes e white peo-
ple of Phillips County want to say the union caused all this
trouble It s not so. The white people was threatened before
this lodge organized in this county. They only put this to
hold up their side. Just as fast as the Negroes lay their crops
by they are driven from their homes and farms. When we
were under arrest, the white people went and burned the
church down to keep from showing up what they had done.
We was not taught to kill no one. It was only for us to come
into union to farm and to buy government land. Robert L
111 dld " ot tel1 us m no meeting whatever to harm the white
man. Ihey took it upon themselves to make this trouble
there was over eighty men, women and children killed and
burned up by fire."

Frank Moore's Statement.

"On the night of September 30th we Negroes was at Hoop
Spar church at union meeting. Over 120 men, women and
children were there in the lodge meeting and there was more
than four or five automobiles of white people within about

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

forty or fifty yards from the church and stopped and started
shooting into the church on the Negroes and killed some of
them. So I ran home that night and the next morning the
whites sent us word that they was coming down there and
'kill every nigger they found/ So just as many of us could
get together we did so. About 11 :30 that day there was about
oOO or 400 white men armed with guns walking and in auto-
mobiles at the railroad coming from Elaine to kill us. So we
all ran back of the field and just as we got back of the field
there was a big crowd of white men shooting and killing Jim
Miller and his children and brother and setting them on lire.
So when we saw them shooting and burning them we turned
running and went to the railroad east from there, and the
white people tried to cut us off. They were shooting at us
all the time, so just as we crossed the railroad and the public
road, it was only two shots was made from the colored people.
It wasn't my rifle that was taken from the man who made the
two shots. We all was running, I having made not a shot in
the* whole trouble. Then I slipped back through the field to
save my mother and little children. About 5 o'clock that eve-
ning, there was near 300 more white people coming on with
guns, shooting and killing men, women and children. So I
took the children and women and went to the woods and stayed
until the next morning when the soldiers' train came. I took
the children and women and made it to the soldier men ; then
they took us and carried us to Elaine village and put us in the
white school-house and I was there five days. Was carried to
Helena County jail and whipped nearly to death to make me
tell stories on the others, to say we killed the white people and
colored people when at the church that night I did not have a
gun whatever.

"The white people want to say that union was the cause of
the trouble. It's not so ; the white people were threatening to
run us away from our crops before this trouble started. The
Phillips County people know they started this trouble and
they only got the army there to cover what they had done.

"I was working fourteen acres of cotton, five acres of corn
and it was the best crop on that place where I was farming.
Now after that they taken my old father and put him in jail
after he had got his crops and taken everything from him.
He was working thirty-eight acres of land, twenty-eight in
cotton, ten acres in corn. Did not give him any of it, so he is
still in Helena jail and I am sentenced to death. And all I
made was taken from my wife and she was driven off the farm.
Also took $678 worth of household goods from her. They did
not give us a fair trial whatever and would not let us talk in
court. Sentenced twelve men to death and put seventy-five

18

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

other Negroes on the farm from one year to twenty-one years.
Also they put my wife in jail and a great many other women.
Also they was whipped as well as the men. Also while whip-
ping us men, they put something in our nose to strangle us.
Also we was put in an electric chair and shocked to make us
lie on each other."

Old Man Ed Colman, 79 Years Old.

"When this trouble started at Hoop Spur church, I was
at home in bed asleep. 1 was living two and one-half miles
from that trouble. By the Negroes running, 1 was awakened
from my sleep and they told me about the white people shoot-
ing into the church on them. Then I was afraid to death near.
W hen the morning had come, I saw about 200 white men in
cars shooting down the Negroes and sent us word that they
were going to "kill every nigger" they could find in the county.
And at 11:30 that day we saw near 300 white armed white
men coming and we all ran back of the held and when we got
back of the field there was a big crowd of white men shooting
and killing Jim Miller's family. We turned and went to the
railroad. The white men tried to cut us off When we got to
the railroad, some of them was there shooting after us. It
was only two shots made from we colored men. There was
not any life taken whatever. We was still running and made
it to the woods, where we were hid all night and all the next
day. Then I came home to get my wife. She was about dead
herself. When I got there, the white men had went and shot
and killed some of the women and children. The next day
I found her, then I taken her and went in the bushes and hid
for all night and all the next day and part of the next night.
The white people know they started this trouble. They <Jid
this to take our crops from us and run us away.

I was working eighteen acres of land, twelve in cotton, six
in corn. All that was taken from me. All my hogs and every-
thing was taken from me, then I am sentenced to die. Fifteen
head of hogs was taken from me. Also my cotton and corn.
The white people taken all that, then run my wife from home."

CHAPTER V.

WHAT WHITE FOLKS GOT FROM RIOT.
Billy Archdale, manager of Mrs. Jackson's farm at Elaine,
Ark., was a leader in this movement against colored people.
He had rented this farm for three years and then hired colored
people to work it on shares. Last year he started with thir-
teen Negro families on the place. By the time the crops were
"laid by" he had driven all but four of them off. This
place is a mile and a half from Elaine. The way he did this
was to refuse to feed the families longer, insist they were in
his debt for supplies they got while planting, working and
laying by the crop, and taking furniture, chickens, hogs and
driving them away.

Four of these families determined not to be run away and
made arrangements to get supplies without depending on
Billy Archdale. They were Gilbert Jenkins, James and Frank
Moure and Daisy Frazier. These worked and stood together,
determined to stay and gather their crops, ignored the insults
and threats of Archdale and were careful to give no offense.
In May, 1919, Frank Moore, who was ill, asked Archdale for
$10 to go to the hospital. Archdale refused, cursing and threat-
ening to kill him. Moore got help from a friend and went to
the hospital. While he was gone his wife hired help and laid
by the crop first of all on the farm. Moore was one of the
prime movers in organizing the union and was at the meeting
the night of the riot. His wife wanted him to leave but
he refused, saying he had "done nothing to leave for ; that if he
ran they would say he was guilty of something, he wasn't
going to leave his crops." But when the mob came next day
he took his mother and her children and all the women on the
place down in the swamp and stayed with them till the sol-
diers came. His wife got away and was gone till she saw in
the papers four weeks later that all was quiet and people could
go back and gather their crops. When she went back to her
house, everything was gone.' She went to the landlord's
house and told his wife she had come to gather her crops and
pay what she owed. She also asked Mrs. Archdale what had
become of her furniture and clothes and where her husband
was. Mrs. Archdale told her she would get nothing even
though Mrs. Moore saw some of her furniture and clothes in

20

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

Mrs. Archdale's house. She also told her her husband was if' n
jail in Helena and they were going to have him put in thf "
electric chair. Mrs. Moore asked why. 4< Did he kill any" "
body?" "No," she said, "but he had just come from the arm^; ?
and he was too bigoted."

Archdale himself demanded to know what she came bac k
for. When she said she came back for her crop, her furn! ! ~
ture and clothes, he told her if she didn't get out and stay ou 1 *
he would kill her, burn her up and no one would know wher" e
she was. So she had to leave with only the clothes she stoo$
in, her whole year's work gone and her husband in jail. John
Nelson, another landlord, arrested and took her to Helena to
jail although she had gone back because the newspapers in-
vited those who had gone away to return. She was kept in
jail eight days and made to work from 3 o'clock in the morn-
ing to 9 or 10 o'clock at night ; she and fifteen other colored
women. This John Nelson who ran the farm of Wilford &
White was recognized by some of the colored people as one
of the leaders of the mob. A Dr. Parker was another of the
leaders, also a Mr. Curtis who is a renter in the neighborhood.

Ed Ware told about the mob killing an old cripple named
Charley Robinson and put him in his wife's bed. The two
women were put in jail. Before doing this, however, they
searched the house for Ed Ware. He was secretary of the
hated union. They broke open trunks and drawers, took all
of Ware's books, files, accounts with work people, secretary's
minutes and Masonic lodge books away with them. They shot
into the mirrors of the house and took fiendish delight in
destroying things. They left the old man's body in the house
for four days before they buried it. Longnecker and Jackson
gave the W'are's three rooms of furniture to poor whites whom
they afterwards moved on the place.

After keeping Mrs. Ware and the girl who was arrested
with her in jail at hard labor for four weeks, sleeping some-
times on the concrete floor, they were discharged with seven-
teen others told to go back home and go to work as they had
always done, "and never join nothing more unless they got
their lawyer's or landlord's consent." Mrs. Ware went back to
get what she had left and found nothing. She saw her safe
in a Mrs. Forsyth's house and a Mr. George had her chairs.

A woman named Lula Black, who with her four children
were working on a farm, was dragged out of her home by
the mob and asked if she belonged to the union. She answered
"Yes." They asked her why. She said, "Because it would
better the condition of the colored people ; when they worked
it would help them to get what they worked for." When she

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

21

said that they knocked her down, beat her over the head with
[their pistols, kicked her all over the body, almost killed her,
then took her to jail.

The same mob went to Frank Hall's house and killed
Frances Hall, a crazy old woman housekeeper, tied her clothes
over her head, threw her body in the public road where it lay
thus exposed till the soldiers came Thursday evening and took
it up. Frank had gone to the gin with a load of cotton. He
left horse, wagon and cotton to get away from the mob. His
brother Paul had joined the union. He was shot in the foot,
taken to jail and is now awaiting electrocution. He and his
brother owned their forty acres m men was in cultivation. His
wife and aged father are still the c.

James Moore, father of Frank Moore, although sixty-five
years old, was farming twenty-five acres of land, he and his
wife and four younger children. He also belonged to this
union and got away when the mob came. He, too went back
on the assurance that trouble was over. They told him to go
ahead and gather his crops which he did. 1 hen he, too, was
arrested and thrown in jail in Helena, where he is today. No
charge against him and no trial. They have taken everything
he had, every bit of the crops he gathered, and drove his wife
and four small children off the place. They are now in Little
Rock in want, while the father and husband is in prison.

Will Knox, his wife and three little children were working
ten acres of land for two-thirds of the crop. They made six
bales of cotton, the smallest bale weighing 550 pounds. When
Knox was taken way Longnecker and Jackson said he owed
them $606 for the year's supplies up to October 1st. Two
bales were sold to them at their price, which left the balance
due of $360. This meant that Mrs. Knox was allowed $246 for
the two bales of cotton sold to Longnecker and Jackson when
at the market price she should have received that for one bale.
She had four bales left in the field and stayed to gather it. This
too was turned over to the firm, and she was told nothing was
coming to her because she was still $25 in debt ! In other
words six bales of cotton, the smallest one weighing 550
pounds at 45 cents per ♦•ound, should have paid the debt of
$606 and left Mrs. Knox over $800 besides. They too are
penniless and homeless.

Ed Hicks, president of the Elaine lodge, had 100 acres of
land rented. His wife was the only woman to get any of her
household goods when she went back after the trouble, al*o
some of her hogs and chickens and a horse which she sold
and realized a little money on. For the twenty-five acres of
cotton and four in corn she received not a cent. All was taken
from her.

22

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

After taking everything these people had, when these
women went to Helena after the trial of their husbands they
were permitted to see them only once and they had to pay a
dollar each to the jailer for the privilege of doing that!

Summary

Ed Ware, 100 acres cotton ; 100 bales at $225 per bale. .$22,500
Frank Hicks and Ed Hicks, 100 acres cotton ; 100 bales

at $225 per bale 22,500

Albert Giles, 20 acres cotton ; 20 bales at $225 per bale 4,500
Joseph Fox, 20 acres cotton ; 20 bales at $225 per bale 4,500
Alfred Banks, 32 acres cotton ; 32 bales at $225 per bale 7,200
John Martin, 22 acres cotton ; 22 bales at $225 per bale 4,950
William Wordlaw, 16 acres cotton ; 16 bales at $225 per

bale 3,600

Frank Moore, 14 acres cotton ; 15 bales at $225 per bale 3,150
Ed Coleman, 12 acres cotton ; 12 bales at $225 per bale 2700
Will Knox, 10 acres cotton ; 10 bales at $225 per bale, . 2,250
Paul Hall, 40 acres cotton ; 40 bales at $225 per bale . . 9,000

Total $86,050

This roughly estimates the yield of cotton at a bale to the
acre, the average bale to weigh 500 pounds and the average
price at 45 cents per pound. As a matter of fact the average
was nearer 50 cents per pound. This does not include the
cotton seed which has as high market value comparatively as
cotton, nor does it include the 100 acres of corn raised by
them, nor the stock, hogs and chickens raised by these men,
all of which were stolen. It seems not too high as an estimate
to say that these twelve men alone had $100,000 worth of cot-
ton, ,corn and cattle stolen from them by the mob which stole
their liberty and are in a fair way to steal their lives unless the
nation intervenes !

The record for the seventy-five who are serving terms of
imprisonment is not complete but a glance at the list secured
shows :

Walter Guley, 23 acres of cotton and corn, farmed for
B. B. Stanley, Elaine, Ark.

B. Earl, 30 acres cotton and corn, worked for Dick How-
ard, Wabash, Ark.

John and E. F. Foster, 40 acres cotton and corn, worked
for Dr. Cruse, Elaine, Ark.

Will Hampton, 35 acres cotton and corn, worked for R. P.
Alman, Elaine, Ark.

I, W. Swats, 20 acres cotton and corn, worked for George
E. Blackburn, Melwood, Ark.

Andrew GofT, 20 acres cotton and corn, worked for Dr.
Cruse, Elaine, Ark.

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

23

j Gilmore Jenkins, 15 acres cotton and corn, worked for
/illy Archdale, Elaine, Ark.

Ed Mitchell, 40 acres cotton and 5 in corn, worked for Dr.
ox, Elaine, Ark.

Dave Haas, 15 acres cotton and corn, worked for Long-
lecker & Jackson, Elaine, Ark.

J Sykes Fox, 18 acres cotton and 7 in corn, worked for Deck
toward Wabash, Ark.

) Will Curry, 70 acres cotton and corn, worked for Wilford
Vhite, Hoop Spur, Ark.

J Ed Baker, 25 acres cotton and corn, worked for C. L. Ba-
iatrd, Elaine, Ark.

Joe Leggens, 20 acres cotton and corn, worked for Deck
[toward, Wabash, Ark.

Joe Meshane, 30 acres cotton and corn, worked for Deck
Joward, Wabash, Ark.

S. J. Jackson, 58 acres cotton and corn, worked for J. L.
ones, Elaine, Ark.

Dan Rollins, 20 acres cotton and corn worked for R. P.
Mman, Elaine, Ark.

D. Paine, 22 acres cotton and corn, worked for S. S. Stokes,
Elaine, Ark.

Charley Jones. 26 acres cotton and corn, worked for Dr.
Richardson, Elaine, Ark.

If C. C. Hubert, 20 acres cotton and corn, worked for Lam-
i'rook & Co., Elaine, Ark.

T. Dixon, 20 acres cotton and corn, worked for Lambroolc
& Co., Elaine, Ark.

James Moore, 35 acres cotton and corn, worked for Billy
Archdale, Elaine, Ark.

I Will Mack, 18 acres cotton and corn, worked for Key
Plntation, Wabash, Ark.

Sam Barber, 22 acres cotton and corn, worked for S. S.
Stokes, Elaine, Ark.

Abe Brown, 20 acres cotton and corn, worked for Dr.
Cruse, Elaine, Ark.

Dave Reed, 20 acres cotton and corn, worked for Lam-
braak, Elaine, Ark. \ '

Henry Avant, 58 acres cotton and corn, worked for Lam-
brook, Elaine, Ark.

Charley Hubbard, 58 acres cotton and corn, worked for
Lambrook, Elaine, Ark.

John Thomas, 35 acres cotton and corn, worked for S. b
Stokes, Elaine, Ark. •

John Jefferson, 35 acres cotton and corn, worked for K. I .
Alman, Elaine, Ark.

24

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS,

Bob Jackson, 23 acres cotton and corn worked for S. S.
Stokes, Elaine, Ark.

Walter Ward, 20 acres cotton and corn, worked for Dr.
Cruse, Elaine, Ark.

Will Steward, 50 acres cotton and corn, worked for R. P.
Alman, Elaine, Ark.

Jim Smith, 48 acres cotton and corn, worked for Will
Crege, Elaine, Ark.

Here are thirty-four of the seventy-five who are serving
sentences ranging from five to twenty-one years. Less than
half the whole number but this thirty-four had cultivated over
a thousand acres of cotton and corn during the year of grace
1919!. If the remaining forty-one did as well, those seventy-
five Negroes are serving terms in the penitentiary for having
nearly 2,000 acres of cotton and corn that the white men of
Phillips County, Ark., could get away from them in no other
way than by driving them away from their crops and pre-
ferring charges against them! It means that the white
lynchers of Phillips County made a cool million dollars last
year off the cotton crop of the twelve men who are sentenced
to death, the seventy-five who are in the Arkansas penitentiary
and the one hundred whom they lynched outright on that
awful October 1, 1919! And that not one of them has ever
been arrested for this wholesale conspiracy of murder, rob-
bery and false imprisonment of these black men, nor for driv-
ing their wives and children out to suffer in rags and hunger
and want !

CHAPTER VI.

The Johnston Boys

The mob which killed Jim Miller, president of the Hoop
Spur lodge of the Farmers' Union, and his family, then burned
their bodies, also arrested and jailed other officers and mem-
bers of this union and thus stamped it out of existence had
no such excuse in the murder of the four Johnston brothers
of Helena, Ark. Yet they too paid with their lives the penalty
of being prosperous negroes in the neighborhood of the riot.

Dr. D. A. E. Johnston, a native of Pine Bluff, Ark., was
married to the daughter of Mrs. E. A. Miller, one of Helena's
most prosperous citizens, and owned a splendid practice there.

In the ten years of his practice as dentist he had built up
wealth for himself and family. He owned a building in which
he also had a drug store on one of the main streets of the city
and was doing well. His two younger brothers had been in
the army. One of them, Leroy Johnston, was wounded in the
trenches in France, and unable to come back with his regi-
ment, the Fifteenth New York Infantry, because he was suf-
fering from his wounds in a hospital when they left for home.
Nor had he entirely recovered from these wounds when he
was murdered. The two younger brothers were running art
automobile business and lived with Dr. D. A. E. Johnston.
An older brother, Dr. L. H Johnston, a physician living in
Oklahoma, had come to visit the three brothers and a hunt-
ing trip to celebrate the reunion was planned On October 2nd
when on their way back to Helena with an auto loaded down
with game, they were told of the riot and advised not to drive
through Elaine. They went back to their starting point, left
their auto, game and guns and boarded the train for Helena.
Somebody was on the lookout for them for when the train
came through Elaine members of the mob boarded it and took
the Johnston boys off, handcuffed them with ropes and placed
them in an auto driven by O. A. Lilly, a real estate dealer of
Helena. As he started to drive the auto away, members of
the mob blazed away at it, and killed the Johnston brothers,
also the white driver, and filled the auto full of holes.

26 THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

the Twwrif 8 °n theSe , f ° ur brothers ,av in the «>adside wheie
they fdl from lh ursday morning till Saturday afternoon in

the h 0t 8un t as if they had been sq ma y ™";

last permission was given the mother-in-law to move thfm and

ZrT7 C g H en bUr L a '- J These P r0 ™nent citizens! eduTated,
cultured gentlemen, had committed no crime, nor were they
KSP" w / th longing to the Farmers> Union or know^
mg anything about ,t. They were killed by Amos Taiwan
county treasurer of Phillips County, who is afso pZmS of

"ThT h K ?J ! - lena W £ rl ? ° f ° ctober 2 > 1919 > sa ys in a bulletin:
fhe building on Walnut Street owned by Dr. D. A E Tohn-

S5t T° d T e 1 t,St ' kil l ed ^ Count y Treasurer Amos jaman
today, after Johnston had shQt and ki]]ed A , derman J ™

Lilly, was surrounded and searched this afternoon. More than
were fo n und/' POWer nflM * SeVeral CaSeS of «W83

Another column in the same issue is headed :
"Important Correction

"In the excitement and uncertainty created by the events
of yesterday it was stated that Clinton Lee was shot and
ki ed accidentally. The statement was made in Ibsolute good

So with Ve ? g , at,0n deVe L° pS ^ at yOUn & Lee was shot °v a
Negro with a high-power nfle. Other Helena boys who were

with him bear witness to this fact. The sympathy of the

entire city goes out to the bereaved family and that of James

ThPvK'" d r d fr ?^ his in j uries yesterday afternoon.
Ihey died in the line of duty and their memories will live
forever in the hearts of the people of Phillips County."

thirS -i y ^ ° f leaving their home in Helena to go
thirty miles away to hunt and shoot down Negroes who were
peaceably minding their own business and exercising the rights
of American citizens to organize to better their condition
h„„V* XT 1 '"" 5 ° f the t0wns nearb y j° in ed in the man

States i Lys? T ° eS * "** * this Same P a P er

. " M rtiCS ° f a ^ ed mC " who came to HeIen a from Claren-
don, Mananna, Marvell and other points near Helena on the

PninTfnVAl 6 ',^, 01 ^ P^ 68 fr ° m Lula > Tunica - F "ars
Point and Clarksdale, Miss, aided in patrolling the streets of

™ Sg laSt ni | ht an ? assisted in preserving order in the
morning 2 "" 6 ' visitors left for their homes this

Another item states that :

mJSl S ' S^V,! 1 .'* 6 ' h fi ° n a char ^ e of murder in con-
nection with the killing of Special Officer Adkins Tuesday

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS. 27

Light, is said by the authorities to have been one of the insti-
gators of the trouble at Elaine and Hoop Spur was brought
to Helena in chains last night. He is said to be a cousin ot
U S. Bratton, attorney of Little Rock, and former postmaster
of that city, and also a member of the law firm of Casey &
Bratton with offices in Helena. Feeling against him is bitte r
but there have been so far no indications of summary action^
Bratton and nineteen Negroes, some of them women, arrested
in connection with the race war, are held under strong guarrt
in Z county jail, and it is understood that they wd be tried
at the next term of the Phillips County Circu.t Cou.t which
convenes two weeks hence. "• .

The mayor of the city issues a proclamation which is also
printed in black type and a two-column announcement reaos:
"PROCLAMATION!
The funeral services of
JAMES TAPPAN
Will be held at 4 p. m. today and
The services of
CLINTON LEE
At 10:30 a. m., Friday, October 3rd.
Therefore I J. G. Knight, Mayor of the City of He ena,
call on the dii Z en J s of Helena to close their places o hu.ne.s
durine the hour of the respective services in order that the
respeft due our citizens who sacrificed then- lives at our call,
can be shown. j Q KNIGHT, Mayor."

Neither of those men were officers of the law yet "they
.aerified their lives at our call" says the mayor. The whole
citv did honor to the men who left their business, armed
Semsdves Jnd went out to murder black men like the John-
s^ brothers and others who had broken no law nor done
them harm The Johnston brothers were in chains and could
rto no harm - they were high-class citizens and successful pro-
? "l,f^n vlt their lives were taken and their bodies lay
beside th^ oad ^ det the Mistering heat of the summer sun
until they putrified, while the city of Helena did honor to their
murderers and those of their brothers in black.

CHAPTER VII.

THE TRIAL

»J! he » f he L Ph ;lI|ps. County Circuit Court convened in
made" 3 ' foll °wing indictment by the Grand Jury was

State of Arkansas]
vs. |
Johns Martin £ Indictment.
Alf Banks, Jr.
Will Wordlow J

i I ht 9, ra " d Ju r y of Phill 'PS County in the name of and
by the authority of the State of Arkansas, accuse John Mar-
tin Alf Banks and Will Wardlow of the crime of mSder Tn
S 5- A, e r g o e f ommitted as follows, to-wit.: The said John
Martin Alf Bank and Will Wordlow in the county and state

I ?K 'In, th f f rSt da , y 0f ° ctober > A " D - 191 9. did unlaw-
tully wilfully, feloniously and with malice aforethought and
am- del ' berat, °n and premeditation kill and murder one W A.
Adkins by shooting him. the said W. A. Adkins with a cer-
tain gun which the said John Martin, Alf Banks, Jr., and Will
Wordlow then and there held in their hands, the said tma
being then and there loaded with gunpowder and leaden balls
against the peace and dignity of the State of Arkansas

M aaqo J° HN E - MILLER,

f°,. 4 f 482 - t Prosecuting Attorney,

indictment for murder in the first degree, 10-28-1919.

State's Testimony in Case of Ed Ware

Charley Pratt having first been duly sworn, was called as
a witness by the State and testified as follows-

I "^u 18 S ha, i Iey . Pratt and 1 am a de P ut 7 sheriiT. I was
sen down by the shenff's office to the Hoop Spur church on

P^c er ^ 'A^i 116 ^?^ 086 ° f makin & an arrest at Elaine.
I was with W. A. Adkins and the other Negro trusty Kit
Collms We went m a car and stopped pretty near the Hoop
Spur church about fifty yards, I presume. A ridge or culvert
was right in front of our car when we stopped

While standing on the outside of my car with Mr. Adkins
we were fired at by a crowd of Negroes, who came over from
the church. I did not know the Negroes, but we were fired

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

29

on by them and Mr. Adkins was killed. I knew Mr. Adkins.
This occurred in Phillips County, State of Arkansas.

Cross Examination
I do not know who killed Mr. Adkins. I did not know any
of these defendants. I can't identify any of the defendants.
I don't know where they came from. This was the last night
of September, between 12 :30 and 1 :00 o'clock, nearly in the
a. m. of October 1st.

Redirect Examination

I saw Mr. Adkins after he was shot. I presume seventv-
five to one hundred and fifty shots were tired on the first occa-
sion. We did not begin the shooting, because we did not have
our guns out of the scabbards. The Negroes came from
towards the church and began shooting. About ten or fifteen
minutes elapsed between the first and second shooting. There
were about one hundred and fifty shots fired in the second
shooting. They came from all directions.

Witness excused.

Jones, having first been duly sworn, was called as witness
by the State and testified as follows :

I am a special agent for the Iron Mountain Railroad.
W. A. Adkins worked under me. I was called down to a
Hoop Spur on the morning of October 1st, following some
trouble that happened there and I got there about 4:30 or 5:00
a. m. The body of W. A. Adkins was lying on the west side
of the road near the rear of the automobile, about seventy
feet from the Hoop Spur church where Mr. Adkins was dead.

Will Wordlow, having first been duly sworn, was called as
a witness by the State and testified as follows :

My name is Will Wordlow and I belong to the Hoop Spur
Lodge. I know Ed Ware; he was secretary of the Lodge. I
was down there the last night in September, the night the
shooting occurred. I went there about 7 or 8 o'clock. When
I got there Ed Ware was on the outside talking. When we all
got in church, he told me to go out there and help guard. T
was a guard. He said if anybody came up to defend them on
the inside. I presume that meant shooting. I had my gun
with me, and he said if anybody came up there bothering us
to shoot. I had a single barrel shot gun. There were about
seven or eight of us out there on guard around the church.

I was under the trestle with John Martin and two other
fellows. The balance of the crowd was on the right hand side
of the church. The last time I saw Ed Ware was when he told
me to go out with my gun and do guard duty. After the
shooting that night, I went across the field. I went down in

30

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

the woods and got lost back of the church ; they caught me ft I
the woods and 1 came on up to Dave Hay's house. Ed Ward
passed Dave Hay's house; I says, Mr. Ed, what about the
shooting. I says you think it is over and he says I don't know j
I don't believe it is, and I says, who got killed and who won
the fight and he says a white fellow got killed. He asked m|
about his wife, had I seen anything of his wife, he says shff
got away from him that night and he went out to defend her.
He said he made three shots ; he said he was shooting toward
the car. That was the last time I saw Ed Ware. He told me
he didn't think it was over yet and that he thought and said
Albert Banks killed him. He said he fired three shots.

I have been found guilty by a jury of killing Mr. Adkins
The conversation I speak of the next morning, was in front of
Dave Hays' house. Ed Ware had a gun, a long rifle, old gun
made sorter like soldiers' guns. I was between 7 or 8 or 9, or
8 or 9 o'clock in the morning. The first time I saw him was;
between 8 and 9 o'clock. At the time I saw him, we both had
our guns. This conversation took place out in front of the
church, telling me what to do, and I didn't want to go out
there, and he says, this is Uncle Sam's law and we have to be*
ruled and governed under it. He says, you will have to go
out, we can make you go out. He says, you are called H
slacker now you ain't made a noise for two or three nights*
He says he was going to put a fine on me and that is the reason
I came out there that night. He says, if anybody came up
there running over you to shoot.

4 Redirect Examination

Ed Ware had this rifle or gun, that I described to the jury
over there at the church, that night and he had the same gun
the next morning, the one he had with him over at Dave
Hays the next morning. Witness excused.

Joe Mitchon testified to seeing Ed Ware with a gun and
hearing him give orders to shoot white people, John Rat-
liflt testified to seeing him behind a log with a gun on his
shoulder and told him he had made three shots.

Frank Kitchens, having been first duly sworn, was called
as witness by the State and testified as follows :

I am sheriff of this county. I know the defendant, he was
apprehended in New Orleans and brought back to Phillips
County. I had a conversation with him about the charge now
pending against him. He said he was at Hoop Spur on the
30th of September, 1919, the night Mr. Adkins was killed.
He made these statements voluntarily. He said he was pres-
ent at lodge that night as secretary, the night Mr. Adkins

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS. 31

was killed. He said the next morning when the shooting
tiegan, that he had his gun in his grip, but that he lost both
h is gun and his grip getting away. And he remained out of
the State until brought back.

Cross Examination

; Ed Ware said he did not have his gun at the church on
the night of the shooting. I asked him did he have tlie au-
thority in the lodge to give orders, he said he didn't know. He
staid Mr. McCullough told him a week before that happened,
Something was going on wrong there, and he intended to re-
sign that night.

| Defendant's Testimony

\ Will McFarland, having first been duly sworn, was called
ajs a witness and testified as follows:

) My name is Will McFarland. I was a member of the
Farmers' Progressive Union and belonged to the Hoop Spur
Lodge. Ed Ware was secretary of the Hoop Spur Lodge. I
was at church, on September 30th, the night Mr. Adkins was
killed, I got there between 9 and 10 o'clock. Ed Ware and
myself went together and his wife, my wife and some little
ones. I was in the church at the time this shooting began.

I didn't do anything when the shooting began, but get down
on the floor and try to keep the bullets from hitting me. Just
as soon as the first shooting was over and as quick as I could
get a chance to get out of the church, I was gone, I didn't
hear Ed Ware give any orders to any guards to do any shoot-
ing. I saw him next day about 9 o'clock.

Cross Examination

I am thirty-seven years old. I came from Daniles, Miss ,
Hurds County. I stayed at 507 York Street. I am working
for Mr. Lafe Solomon. When I was not working for him I
was working for the Chicago Lumber Company. I am a Bap-
tist preacher. I have been preaching a year and six months.

II don't know what Ed Ware carried in a little grip. It had
secretary's books and papers in it. The lights went out when
tjhe shooting started. I couldn't see anything for a while.
After the shooting, I went back in the woods with my w f ife
and his and four other women. I did not see him until the
inext morning about 9 o'clock. When the lights went out and
l:he shooting started, I got out and ran. He had a 41 Swiss
gun. I left the place the next morning when I saw the white
men coming up the road. I went in the woods back of his
house, thence to Brickey, Arkansas, I stayed there three
weeks with a fellow named Fred Scott. He and I went on

32

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

train to Orleans, where I stayed until I was captured anc[
brought back. I left the country because I didn't want to get
killed and Ed told me they were killing anybody that belonged
to the union. I had planned to come back here Tuesday, bujt
they captured me Sunday. I ran away because I was scared

Redirect Examination

Ed Ware, having first been duly sworn, was called as
witness and in his own behalf and testified as follows: i

My name is Ed Ware and I am the defendant in this case.
I was a member of the Progressive Farmers' Union of Amer -
ica. I was secretary to the Hoop Spur Lodge prior to Octo-r
ber 1st. This was my third meeting. I had belonged to thi
Union not quite a month. I was present September 30th,
when Mr. Adkins was killed. I left home about 9:30 or l(p
o'clock with my wife, McFarland and his wife and Lonz<b
Riley. I was sick. I went home and laid down and starte<!l
not to go to the meeting and my wife insisted on me going
because I had those books and papers. It is about a milfe
from my house over there. Neither my wife nor myself can-
ned a gun or pistol. I had no orders to guard there that night!
When I got to church that night, they was already in session],
and the house was lit up and the light gleamed right out iiji
the yard and I walked up in the light. I was sitting down at
the secretary's table when the first shot was fired, filling out
those blanks. I did not make the statement that if the guard*!
couldn't handle it I would go out and handle it. When I got
through, I was going to resign and turn the books over to theml
I had told McFarland prior to this meeting, that I was going
to resign. I had had a conversation with a white man about i :
prior to this time. I got in my car and went to the Elaine
postoflfice. Mr. McCollough came into the office and got hii$
mail and he turned and says to me, "Ed, come here." We wen \
out around the side of the office and he says, "Do you belong to
the union ?" and I says, "Yes, sir, I am secretary of it at Hoo]|>
Spur." "Well, tell me what is that thing?" I says, "You knovtr
as much about it as I do. It is called the Progressive Farmers '
Household Union of America, as I understood it. It is to
make better conditions among the farmers and that is why
I belong to it. It is supposed to be a government agency ,
this fellow is, and they have affidavits to fill out to buy gov-
ernment blanks, homestead government lands ; in other words ;
he has questionnaire blanks. This little fellow Hill, that se1 :
up the institution that is what he presented to us. He said I
give him $10 a man and we would get 160 acres of land; he is|
supposed to have 1,600 acres located down at or below Mell-

1

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS. 33

^vvood and he wanted us to get him $200. Some people put in
i dollarand some $1.25. I put in $10 myself and he written up
a c n affidavit for me for 160 acres of land ; that is why I belong
tu it to try to get some of that land. I never would have joined
in the world if it hadn't been for that. I had no gun the night
N<Ir. Adkins was shot. I went out when the shooting took
place. I tried to get out the door and fellows was rushing in
tlfie door so fast I couldn't get out, so finally when I did get a
cfhance to get outside, I went through an alfalfa patch to Henry
Mason's house. It must have been somebody else Dave Hays
justified to lying up behind a log about thirty rods from the
point where this snooting occurred with a gun. I got home
the next morning a little before the train run ; I left Henry
fylason's house that morning after the sun was up.

Cross Examination

I joined the lodge in September at Hoop Spur. Joe Michon
nd an old fellow by the name of Charley Robinson, these
tjxo and Will Curry was the first man that brought them to
me. They induced me to join the Hoop Spur lodge. I hadn't
Ipeen to but two meetings when the trouble arose. Jim Miller
was the president of the Hoop Spur Lodge, then I joined it 1
#nd 1 got to be secretary. I had charge of the blanks and
membership applications and the medical examination blanks
and the books and all that, and the list of members. The last
time I saw the books was Wednesday a. m., October 1st. It
was in my hand, but when I broke and run, I don't know what
became of it.

1 know Robert L. Hill when I see him. I never have seen
him but once or twice at Hoop Spur and at Elaine. The only
speech he made was concerning government land. He made
that speech at Elaine. I was at Elaine Thursday night prior
to this killing the following Tuesday night, acting as secre-
tary. I know Ed Hicks and Frank Moore, said to be the brav-
est man on the board. I knew all of the fellows that belonged
to the board. I was not at Elaine lodge Thursday night prior
to the killing Tuesday night. I was transferring people in my
auto trying to make money.

I deny that I took charge of the secretary's office and
posted those guards around there ; that I sat at the table with
Ed Hicks, Shelttiin Baker, Frank Moore and four or five others,
and Knox the secretary at what you call this board meeting,
and picked out certain men in the community that we were
going to kill. I deny that prior to this killing Tuesday night,
that Hicks Moore and Mr. Knox and myself and the officers
o (that lodge did select the names of Mr. Knox the postmaster

34 THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

to be killed, Charley Bernam, Jim Countias and Will Craig; j-
head, Mr. Crow, or pick these gentlemen out and consult abou, ft
killing them provided the proper settlements were made an iC |
that these parties did submit- that list to me for my approve foi,
I deny that after discussing it openly for a few minutes ar lid
among the officers of the lodge, that we said we had bett £r
stop this conversation, that there are some white mouths hefe
in the room that are liable to give us away, and that I djfid
write the names down, one at a time, each one of us looked
at is and voted that they were to be killed. I denywhat olid
man RatlifT says is the truth and Wordlow. I deny I went
over there with a gun and that I had a pistol in my grip and I
deny everything that anyone has testified to in the case here
against me. I didn't have but one gun, a little single barrev^
breech, and it wouldn't shoot and I got a new one that would
shoot, a 41 Swiss A. P. Price, at Arkansas City. I had three or
four shells at my home to fit this gun. This is not the gun I
fired in the direction of Mr. Adkins. I didn't have narry a giin
with me that night. I went home the next morning and got it. I
didn't have any talk with Will Wordlow in regard to the
trouble. I ran away and went out in the woods and ran into
this Negro preacher McFarland. We stayed with Fred Scott,
a colored fellow that stayed on Hugh Piper's place. I met him
on the 5th day of October on Crowley's Ridge. I stayed there
two or three weeks. I didn't shoot anybody. I ran away to
New Orleans because I was afraid, they was shooting every-
body they said. After I got to Brickey's I got a letter from a
man named Murray, he told me everything had quieted down
and that the soldiers had gone. I had been at Brickey's about
a week when I got that letter. I wrote Joe Murray a letter
from Brickley, that is why he knew where I was. I was
coming back as I got a pay day. I was at Algiers when I
answered. I talked to the officers that arrested me about this
charge against me and to the judge of the court also and I
told them that I didn't want to come back here, that I would
be lynched. I changed my name when I got to New Orleans
and went under the name of Charley Hubbard. I did so be-
cause it was just foolish ignorance I went by the name of
Will Brown in Louisiana.

Suggas Bondman, having first been duly sworn, was called
in the rebuttal by the State, etc.

* I Hve r at/Eiaine on M-'K. AHerman's place. I having been
living down there go fn^^n .tvv.Oi^ear I "know. Ed Ware. I
belonged to the Elaine lodge down there. I went to it every
time but once. I was down there at the meeting they had
Thursday night before the trouble occurred next Tuesday.
I heard a conversation between Ed Ware there that night and

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

35

Ed Hicks, Baker and Knowles and Frank Moore and the other
board members and officers that were running the lodge about
killing people around there and who they were going to kill.
Ed W are when he come, he kinder took the meeting in charge,
he thought he could handle it better than Ed HicKs and when
he taken in it charge, he says, I will show you. how 1 handle
your people at Huop >pur, and he goes to work then and
sends out the guards outside and so on. They took out shot
gun and Winchesters. Ed Ware took charge of the lodge
in place of Ed Hicks. He advised them like this, he lirst says:
1 here's Mr. Bernard and he specified Mr. Crow and Mr.
stokes and Mr. Moore and Mr. Counties and the postofftce
man. He says that Mr. Moore gave him a lot of trouble about
their mail; they sure wanted to get him, too; he wanted the
hooking cow, he said they sure wanted him and then E. W.
told Ed Hicks he says, we will hold up this conversation right
here, he says there is some white mouths and some niggers in
here, and they gets close around the table and all the b.g men
they just writes a name and asks how about this one and about
the other one, and they would say he goes and some of the
rest of them wrote and passed it round and says what about
him and they said yes, we sure want to get him. Ed Ware and
the others made those statements. Ed Ware was the one
that told them to hold up this conversation, and they wrote
to one another then around the table, he called the holding
it up out of the snitchers' mouths, he said there was some
white mouths and snitchers* mouths, he said for them to set
clear of the windows and keep their eyes open, that some of
the members may get shot and he said that every member
in the house that has a gun if any white face poked his face
in the window or door, everybody shoot right at it. and told
the guards on the outside to go to every fork of the road,
dog path and all not let nothing white pass. He said he wanted
to show them how he handled his people up at Hoop Spur.

Crass Examination

I was at the meeting last night. I got there about 6 or 7
o'clock. It was kinder getting dusk. Ed Ware was not there
when I got there. It was an hour after dark or something
like that when Ed Ware came. When he came in, they an-
nounced this Hill fellow, he goes to Robert Hill and shakes
hands with him and had a new pump gun, looked like it
might have been new, in his hands and they shook hands
and Robert Hill asked him what was that he had and he says
something to put in the racks. And he says it has not been
shot more than just to try it, and he says when I do kill some-
thing it will be Ringard.

36

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

I was not a member of the board and held no official office
but was just a bench member. The board did all this vot-
ing on this people. They planned to kill Mr. Bernard, Mr.
Stokes, Mr. Moore, the postoffice man, and Mr. Countiss and
Mr. Crow and Mr. Kreggs, and then they held up and just
wrote one to another and might have pointed more than that
but they done it themselves. I never knew Ed Ware, but I
have seen him lots of times ; I never knew him until he came
to the meeting at Elaine.. I knew him by being an active mem-
ber then.

There were about three hundred present at the meeting.
Ed Hicks, Frank Moore, Frank Hicks were there. Ed Ware
had control of the meeting. He was a Hoop Spur man and he
knew Ed Hicks, and I reckon he just took charge and I heard
him tell them he wanted to show them how he handled his
members at Hoop Spur. Ed Hicks was president of the Hoop
Spur lodge and Ed Raker secretary.

This was all the testimony in the case.

THE STATE VS. FRANK HICKS— ABSTRACT OF
RECORD

State's Testimony

R. L. Brooks, having first been duly sworn, was called as
a witness by the State and testified as follows :

(Direct Examination by P. R. Andrews)

My name is R. L. Brooks. I have lived at Helena for the
past three years, excepting a couple of years in the army. I
was in Helena on the 1st day of October, 1919, up until 9:15
that morning.

The first place I went that morning was Hoop Spur, with
a posse of officers that went down to see about arresting some
Negroes that were said to have killed a man. I was accom-
panied by Messrs. Nosby, J. D. Carlson, Meyers, Leo Markus.

I knew Clinton Lee. I saw him in the neighborhood of
Hoop Spur and I was present on the morning of October 1st,
when he was killed down there. He was seated in the rear
seat, and I was standing on the running board holding to the
left door. I didn't hear the report of the gun, I only heard the
whistle of the bullets. I heard two bullets. They came in the
back end of the car. Clinton Lee was struck by one bullet.
The first thing he did, he got up from the seat and managed to
get to the door; whether or not he opened the door I don't
know, but he got to the running board and fell to the ground.
He says, I am hit, take me in the house. We laid our guns
on the ground and took him up and took him in Mr. McCoy's

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

37

house. I stayed with him until he died which couldn't have
been more than five minutes. This occurred in Phillips County,
Arkansas, on the 1st day of October, 1919.

Cross Examination

I heard only two bullets hissing near the car. There ware
six men in the car and I was on the running board. At the
time the bullets came the car was in the process of turning
around ; the car pulled in from the road facing Mr. McCoy's
house, and we had pulled it out; in other words, the car had
just gotten in motion, when the bullets came. Mr. Lee was
sitting on the left side, rear seat, rear end. There wesc no
curtains up; we were riding in a "Moon." Lee was exposed
to the bullets from the direction the bullets came, I would
say about half of his body. The bullet that hit him came
through the car, his body wasn't exposed where the bullet hit
him.

I had heard shots discharged thirty minutes before that
time. They were in the woods, it was kinder hard for me to
I pick out any direction. I was summoned to go down there by
la member of the American Legion. I was sworn in as a tnem-
jber of the posse by some officer; Mr. Straub, I think it was;
j he was acting as sheriff.

This shooting occurred, as well as I can remember, between
12 and 12:30.

Witness excused.

L. R. Parmalee, having first been duly sworn, was called
s a witness by the State and testified as follows:

I am a civil engineer. I assisted in the making of this plat,
/with W. K. Monroe. It is approximately a correct plat or dia-
ram of the territory surrounding the town of Elaine, the
"oop Spur Church and Lorenzo Spur and other points down
n that community. The names written in it are descriptive
f the houses and the various people shown on this plat, and
points; Hoop Spur Church and the town of Elaine, and
tjhe railroad tracks, the public road and these bayous in the
ijn mediate neighborhood. I have been over this territory my-
elf. I worked on this map in the office with Mr. Monroe,
e didn't give me any data; from my knowledge and his
knowledge of that territory down there he constructed the
map ; there was no accurate survey made of it ; it is a general
map showing the general location of those different points.

I did not go down there especially for the purpose of get-
ting data to make this map. I was down there immediately
after this trouble or during this trouble, and of course I worked
there considerable, and from my general knowledge and from

38 THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

Mr. Monroe's particular knowledge this map was. constructed
by Mr. Monroe. I am not trying to testify as to the accu-
racy of this map. frcm the knowledge that Mr. Monroe has
of it. but I do know from general knowledge and his particu-
lar knowledge, I do know those points are approximately cor-
rect. The supposed mark on the map where Frank Hicks w?s
standing is accurate generally speaking; we do not know
the spot but we do know the general position. This map is
built according to scale. I didn't see Hicks standing there,
but I would swear to the accuracy of this map. All of those
points, those houses, etc., are correct, generally speaking.
There has been no survey for the map so far as I know; I
didn't see Mr. Monroe make the survey ; it is what we call a
sketch map. The scale on the map is 1,000 feet to the inch. I
know it is accurate as the time has now come when all people
it is accurate as mechanical skill — you Can scale only to a cer-
tain degree of accuracy. If you are trying to make me say
that we made an accurate survey, why I can't do it, but I sav
as a general layout that map is correct. I won't swear to the
exact measurement, because I haven't taken them.

Redirect Examination

I made that from a map of the country, which shows the
various subdivisions of land with respect to the land lines and
the places where the houses and town of Elaine, which is
shown on the country map — it is copied from the county map
to this map. I got it from the county map. I say it is sub
stantially correct.

Witness excused.

Dr. O. Parker, having been first duly sworn, was called as
a witness by the State and testified as follows :

My name is Dr. O. Parker. I was present down aT M
McCoy's house on the morning of October 1st last whe
Clinton Lee was killed. I was in the house when he was sho
He was about forty feet from the automobile where he w
killed. They brought him in the house at once. He was dyin
at the time. I had Mr. Tappan there ; I was taking care
Mr. Tappan; I saw the boy was dying and I didn't make a
examination. He died in my presence. TTie shot that enl
tered his body just a short while before was the cause of his"
death.

George Green, having first been duly sworn, was called as
a witness by the State, and testified as follows :

My name is George Green. I live on Mr. Stanley's place,
down at Elaine. I was down at Elaine the first of October.
I just came here three weeks before this happened. I joined

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS. 39

ttife Farmers' Progressive Union immediately before this hap-
pened on Thursday night. 1 know Frank Hicks, the defend-
ant. He was a member of the Lodge. He was at the meeting
on Thursday night before this trouble came up on the follow-
ing Tuesday. He had a gun on that night and everybody else
ir? the church I seen.

/ 1 didn't hear about the shooting until Walter Ward came
tjo my house and got me, a little before day, about 4 o'clock.
1 got up and put on my clothes and waited till he come back
t>y there, and we went over to Frank Moore's. I carried with
pie a shot gun, and got to his house a little before day. Paul
Hall's house is right close to Frank Moore's and Sweatman.
/When I got there, I found about thirty. They were sitting
Wound Frank Moore's. All had guns. It was about 10 or
yl o'clock before we left that place. There were about seventy-
ffive Negroes gathered at Paul Hall's and Sweatman's houses
loefore we left there and Frank Hicks was there that morning.
He got there about 8 o'clock. He had his gun; I never saw
/anyone with him. He was talking about first one thing and
/then another.

Frank Moore was in command of the army, when we all
lined up and marched away about 11 o'clock.

They said they heard shooting over there. I didn't hear
it, I was lying down on the gallery and they all said we hear
| some shooting over there. And they commenced hollering
(and whirling: and Frank Moore called them and says get in
| line two by two, Frank Moore and Ed Hicks and Joe Knox.
1 got in line about the middle. Frank Hicks kinder cut across
the held. When he was in line, he was kinder in front.

Frank Moore was in command and he told us to march up
and we marched in the direction of the shooting. And finally
we came to the big road. When we got to the railroad all
I of them broke across the railroad, and before I got up on the
' railroad I heard a shot made. I was about twenty feet from
the man that was doing the shooting.

Frank Hicks was doing the shooting. He did it with one
of these here 70 f s. when he throwed up to shoot I th rowed up
my hands and said, Boys don't shoot ; he says God damn it,
1 will shoot you. I never heard but one shot. I saw the
shot he made and when he throwed up his gun, I throwed up
my hand, and I says, Boys don't shoot.

Frank Hicks made that shot, he shot his gun right straight
up the road. He shot toward Helena. It was a little after
12 o'clock I guess. Well, directly after that we seen a train
coming and all of them hid, and after he shot, he came back up
the railroad where I was ; they seen the train coming and all

40

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

of them hid, and when the train got by, I says I am going
home and he says, 1 am too and the three of us went home.
1 couldn't see nothing but cars up the road in the direction
in which he shot.

Cross Examination

I heard two shots fired. Wasn't but just about the time
he could shoot and unload and get his gun loaded. Frank
Hicks had one of these here 70's. Rifle shoots these here
long balls, it has one charge in it at a time. There were sev-
eral people around there where Frank was. He did not hold
an office in the lodge ; he was just a common ordinary mem-
ber. I joined the Thursday before and it was my first attend-
ance at that meeting. I don't know what it organized for,
the night I was there. Well, this fellow Hill, he was up talk-
ing and he spoke some big words about the white folks, he
says I know you will tell them and I want them to know it ;
he says, we are liable to have trouble some time, but you ah
stand your ground. His order was to bring your gun. All o.
them went across the road together. When I saw Frank he
was up in the road and the shot was made before I got up on
the railroad.

Witness excused.

John Jefferson, having first been duly sworn, was called'
as a witness by the State and testified as follows:

I have been a member of that Order. I joined Friday night
and the trouble started at Hoop Spur Tuesday. I got the
orders to carry my gun the night I joined, because they was
looking for trouble, looking for them to come down there)
and break the m < ting up. This fellow Hill told me that he
was there that night. I understood our union was for the
good, to heip us out; that is what they told me in the meet-
ing. They were going to give us legal rights and everything.
He says, we all was going to have our rights, we was going
to be better; we was going to get along better in this world \
but it might cause trouble.

Redirect Examination

He said we was going to have trouble. They came after
us to go and help fight whoever was in trouble over at Paul )
Hall's house. The place where Mr. Lee's body was, that was
in Phillips County, Arkansas.

Witness excused.

Tom Faulkner testified as follows:

My name is Tom Faulkner. I was down at Hoop Spur on
the 1st day of last October. We left about 8 o'clock in the
morning. I knew Clinton Lee in this life. I saw him down

1 r

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

41

there that day. He got down there about the same tune I did.

• I know where Mr. McCoy's house is on the public way
dJwn there. That is the correct location of his house on this
m -ip The shot was from the south, on this map. 1 was pres-
ent near Mr. McCoy's house about 12 or 1 o'clock, when Clin-
ton Lee was shot. ' I was probably fifty or one hundred feet
fitom him, when he was shot. He was in the car out there m
f, ont of the house. I heard the shots fired at the time Mr. Lee
Jas shot. The shot was from the south. There were two
sliots fired at that time. The man who fired the shots was m
a Vouching position, on his knees. He was just off the pub-
lid road. I had seen this man before the gun was hr a. 1 saw
three up there and I saw one of them fire The other two
seemed to be in the rear of the one who fired. The men that
fir fed the shot was south of the car. This happened about
njon time or afternoon.
Witness excused.

S. S. Stokes, having first been duly sworn, was called as a
fitness by the State and testified as follows:

My name is S. S. Stokes. I live at Elaine. I was at home
oh October 1st last when this trouble occurred at Hoop Spur
Jnd around Elaine. I know the defendant Frank Hicks I
did in the presence of other men, down at Elaine, some two
on three days, after this trouble have a conversation with the
defendant in which I asked htm to state the facts to us about
tl(e fighting that occurred there and especially with reference

to i the killing of young Lee.

Cross Examination

( Those present were J. O. Crow. K. P. Alderman, Mr. Nel-
so ,V C W. L. Armour and J. M. Countiss
' \l asked him one or two questions and Mr Crow. We were
not armed. We asked him for a statement without putting
Sirn under duress or fear. He didn't answer the questions
ha' made a statement ; when he got started he just told us the
stlry right there, straight through ; we didn't have to question

h t m FraS Hicks said thev had come and woke him up earlv
that morning and had told him that they wanted him up at
Paul Hall's house near Frank Moore's house, and he went
To there. He told who it was that came after him ; I don t
remember who that was: and they went to Paul Hall's house
;vhere there was a big bunch of Negroes in the .crowd there
,nd they stayed there until pretty nearly noon and Ed d.dn t
-ome tin uniil late, and after he got there long before they
- heard the shots at Hoop Spur the firing up tin and h, a d
Vat Frank Moore told them that there was Ed Ware up there
lat the time had come that they all had to go and fight, and

42

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

they went toward Hoop Spur,-towards the firing and he sa/id
they got pretty near to Hoop Spur and they stopped belli' id
a bunch of bushes, and saw them firing on the house at HoUp
Spur — it was Jim Miller's house, and they stopped and ioolffed
through the bushes a while; then Hicks and Moore, Fraink
Moore, told them that they would surround the bunch thh-re
and have the battle right there, that it didn't look like thare
was very many and they turned to the right and crossed tljie
railroad track, went toward the railroad track, and when they
got over there he said that Ed Hicks said that the white folKs
had better guns than they had and they better not go up there,
and they crossed the tracks, and he said that he knelt in t/he
road — Frank Hicks — and he said when he got to the road tie
thought he would just take a shot into the crowd and may be
get some of them; and he said he borrowed Sweat ColemaJi's
rifle to make the shot, and he shot once, I am not positive
whether he shot once or twice, he said he shot into the ro id
and the crowd scattered, and Mr. Crow asked him what the
said then and he says, I don't remember what I said, but aftler
that we got up and went in the cornfield.

Witness excused. j
It was on this testimony that Frank Hicks, Ed Ware a^id
the other ten men were sentenced to die in the electric chair.
After agitation by lovers of justice against this unjust finding,
able counsel in Little Rock was engaged to make motion lor
a new trial and the following is the exact wording of ttyat
motion :

CHAPTER VIII.

MOTION FOR A NEW TRIAL

It was on this testimony that Frank Hicks, Ed
Ware and the other ten men were sentenced to die in the
electric chair. After agitation by lovers of justice a-
gainst this unjust finding, able counsel in Little Rock was
engaged to make motion for a new trial and the following
is the exact wording of that motion :

Defendant, Frank Hicks, moves and prays the Court to set
aside the verdict of the jury therein, and grant and give him a
new trial herein, for the following reasons:

He is a Negro of the African race, and was at the time
of the trial, and for a long time previous thereto a citizen of
the United States and the State of Arkansas, and a resident of
Phillips County;

That the deceased Clinton Lee, whom defendant is charged
by the indictment wkh murdering, was killed on the 1st of
October, 1919, by some person unknown to defendant, in a
deadly conflict following a disturbance between the white and
black races of said county, on the night previous ; for which
he was in no way responsible;

That the excitement of the white residents and citizens
of said county was intense, and their feelings against the
blacks including the defendant, bitter, active and persistent ;

That in the course of it, some four or five white men and
a large number of Negroes were killed, from 50 to 100.

That on or about the said first day of October, 1919, defend-
ant was, along with many other Negroes, 200 or more, taken
into custody by said whites, carried to the county jail and
there kept in close custody and confinement until he was in-
dicted and put upon trial ;

That at the time of the returning of said indictment and
trial, said excitement and bitterness of feeling among the
whites of said county, against the Negroes, especially against
the defendant, was unabated and still at the height of in-
tensity ;

That this feeling among the whites was coextensive with
the county ;

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

That during his confinement he was frequently subjected
to torture for the purpose of extracting from him admission of
guilt — as were others then also in custody, to force them to
testify against the defendant;

That he was given no opportunity to consult with friends,
or to seek assistance for defense or relief, nor was he even
informed of the charges against him until after his indictment;

That while he was thus confined, several hundred white
men of said county, assembled at or near the court house and
jail for the purpose of mobbing him, and were only prevented
from doing so, as defendant is informed and believes, by the
presence of United States soldiers ;

That the indictment was returned on the 20th of October,
1919, by the grand jury composed wholly of white man;

That on the 30th of the same month subpoenas for the
State's witnesses were issued, to appear and testify in his case
on the 3rd of November following;

That on the said 3rd day of November, without ever having
been permitted to see or talk with any attorney, or any person
in reference to his defense, he was carried from the jail to the
court room and put upon trial — the court appointed an attor-
ney for him, before a jury composed of white men ;

That the excitement and feeling against the defendant
among the whites of the said county was such that it was
impossible to obtain an unprejudiced jury of white men to try
him — and that no white jury, being fairly disposed, would have
had the courage to acquit him regardless of the testimony ;

That the trial proceeded without consultation on his part,
with any attorney, without witnesses in his behalf, and
without an opportunity on his part to obtain witnesses or pre-
pare for defense ;

That no evidence was offered in his behalf ;

That he had no knowledge or familiarity with Court pro-
cedure, had never been at a trial in Court before, and had no
definite idea of his rights therein, and had no conception of
what steps should be taken for his protection ;

That the whole course of trial, from beginning to end, oc-
cupied about three-fourths of an hour;

That the jury after hearing the State's evidence and the
Court's charge retired and returned immediately; that is,
within about from three to six minutes with a verdict of
guilty against the defendant.

Defendant, Frank Hicks, further says that no copy of the
indictment was ever served upon him nor upon him nor upon
any attorney for him, and he says that he never consented to
waive such service, nor requested nor consented to the trial
without same. Defendant, therefore, says that he was con-

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

45

victed and sentenced to death without due process of law.

That under the law as it has existed for many years, the
Circuit Courts of the state at each term appoint jury com-
missioners to select grand and petit jurors to serve at the,
succeeding term ; and for more than thirty years it has been
the unbroken practice of said courts to appoint only white
men on such commissions, and of such commissions to select
only white men for grand and petit jurors for the succeeding
terms — constituting a discrimination in the administration
of the law against the Negroes, on account of their color and
of their being members of the African race ; and that if in the
course of the Court's proceedings it became or becomes neces-
sary to issue a venire for talesmen, to the sheriff, the invari-
able course is, and has been, to summon only white men ; this
practice, with reference to the selection of grand and petit
jurors, and the summoning of talesmen, prevails and has pre-
vailed in the Circuit Court of Phillips County, with unbroken
uniformity, to the extent that no Negro has been appointed on
a jury commission, or selected to serve as a juror, either grand
or petit, for more than thirty years, and that no Negro has
been appointed to or has sat upon any jury in said Court at
any time during such period ; that the Negro population of said
county exceeds the whites at least five to one and that among
them are a great many men, possessed of the intellectual,
moral and legal qualification for jury commissioner, and for
grand and petit jurors ; and that they are excluded therefrom
solely on account of their race and color.

That defendant has thus been, by said discriminating prac-
tice's, and by said trial, deprived of his rights under the Con-
stitution of the United States, and especially the Fourteenth
Amendment thereto ; and was in and by said trial and proceed-
ings and still is, denied equal protection of the law.

Defendant further says, that while it is true, as he is now
advised, that the proper and regular place and time to have
objected to the grand jury, and to the indictment returned by
it, would have been before the trial yet as before stated, he
knew nothing about such proceeding or the proper order
thereof ; and was given no opportunity to object to the grand
jury, or any member thereof, and knew nothing of his rights
to raise any objections to either grand or petit jury; and noth-
ing about how to challenge or object to either of them, and
was not advised in that regard.

That the verdict is contrary to the law and the evidence,
and is not supported by sufficient evidence.

Fourth

That the Court erred in rendering judgment and sentence
against defendant.

46 THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

Defendant says that for the purpose of proving the state-
ments in the first and second grounds of the motion, he has
ascertained the names of the jury commissioners, at the vari-
ous terms of this Court, from 1905 to 1919, inclusive, begin-
ning with . . . . ; and he now prays that they be summoned to
testify on the hearing of this motion, and that he be permitted
to prove said statements.

Defendant further prays that the verdict and judgment
herein against him be set aside and that he be granted a fair
and impartial hearing.

MURPHY & McHANEY,
SCIPIO JONES,

Attorneys for Defendant.

Alf Banks, Jr., being first duly sworn, on his oath, says :

I am a Negro. I was living in Phillips County, Arkansas,
up to the 1st of October, 1919, when I was arrested and there-
after kept in custody until after I was sentenced to death, on a
charge of murdering W. A. Adkins. I was then sent to the
State penitentiary for execution and am now in the custody
of the keeper of the penitentiary. I was never told of the
charge against me, until I was indicted. I was put in the
county jail at Helena and kept there in close confinement,
with no opportunity to see or confer with anyone about my
defense. A large number of Negroes, a hundred or more, were
held in custody there with me during ail that time. I was
frequently whipped with great severity, and was also into an
electric chair and shocked, and strangling drugs would be put
to my nose to make me tell things against others that they had
killed or shot at some of the white people and to force me
to testify against them. I had not seen anything of the kind,
and so told them, at first, but they kept on, and tortured me so
that I finally told them falsely that what they wanted me to
say was true and that I would testify it. They would have me
blindfolded when torturing me. Once, they took me upstairs,
put a rope around my neck, having me blindfolded, pulled on
the rope, and one of them said, "Don't knock the trick out yet,
we can make him tell," or words to that £2ect. That feeling
that they would kill him, he agreed to tell what they wanted
him to. That they would go over it and tell him that he knew
that was so, and that he had to tell it. During the trials at one
or two of them, they took me from the jail to the court room
to testify against them. I think it was the trial of Joe Fox
and Albert Giles, and I think also against one or two others.
As they were taking me to the court room, they told me if I
changed my testimony or did not testify as I had said, when

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

47

they took me back they would skin me alive. I testified as I
had told them, in the same way they had made me tell as near
as I could. It was not true ; it was false. This whipping and
torturing was known generally among the Negroes there in
custody, and it was known what it was for, to make them
testify. I know that they so whipped and tortured p great
many of them. But cannot say that they whipped them quite
all. They used Negroes they had in or about the jail to do
most of the whipping, but some white men would be present.
One of the Negroes who saw part of the torture was Kid
Collins, who seemed to be a trusty about the jail. Many of the
scars from this torturing are still upon my body. I would
never have testified falsely as I did if I had not been made to
do it.

His

ALF X. BANKS.
Mark

Witness to mark:
J. R. Booker.

Subscribed and sworn to before me this the 18th day of
December, 1919.

(SEAL) J. R. BOOKER, Notary Public.

My commission expires Jan. 31 1923.
Endorsed :

Filed December 20, 1919.

A. G. Burke, Clerk. g

CHAPTER IX.

The Progressive Farmers and Household Unlofl
of America.

So much has been charged against this Union
which those Negro farmers had organized among them-
selves, that a reprint of its constitution and bylaws ought
to satisfy the most skeptical that the members were not
organizing to kill white people. Every word and letter
in this little volume is here given just as it appears in a
copy which was given to each member. Special attention
is called to the object of the organization.

"The object of this organization shall be to ad-
vance the interests of the Negro morally and intellectual-
ly and to make him a better citizen and a better farmer."

Nothing could more clearly refute the slander of
those who were interested in breaking up this organiza-
tion among Negroes than that paragraph.

UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION AND BY-LAWS OF
THE PROGRESSIVE FARMERS AND .HOUSEHOLD
UNION OF AMERICA. .

The Negro Business League

IN UNION IS STRENGTH

First organized under the act of Congress of 18S5
Revised and organized by Robert L. Hill, Councillor, V.
E. Powell, M. D., Knox Degraphenreed and Lewis Lag-
groon in 1918 1 , for the benefit of the Negro Race.

Organized at Winchester. Ratified and incorpora-
ted at Little Rock, Ark., under orders of the Supreme
Court of Arkansas.

CONSTITUTION.
This organization shall be known as THE PROGRESS-

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS. 4 9
...IVE FARMERS AND HOUSEHOLD UNION OF A-
MERICA. OBJECT

Tho nbiect of this organization shall be to advance

to make him a bett er citizen and a bett er farmer.

ARTICLE I.

Officers. ...
c^+irtT, 1 This organization shall have five (5)
table omcerT; fcSiHK Vice-President, Secretary,
Treasurer and Chaplam^^ ^

Executive Board. t
There shall be an Executive Board consisting of
nine members. ^

Election. ,

The officers shall be elected to serve three months
or until their successors shall be ^"f «f n ^ f ftl, 2jS' or .

A two-third vote of the membership ot tnis or
der is necessary to elect any and all officers.

ARTICLE IV.

This order shall have the power to enact any law
for the protection and government of its members.

v ARTICLE V.

This order shall have a pass word, door words,
erins and signs for its members. The same sign shall bo
changed every three months. Ritual shall be gotten out
by The Resident, Secretary, and Chairman of the Execu-
tive Board. The President shall extend these pass words
siens and grips to the members every three months. Anc
if any of the signs or pass words should become exposed
the President shall call the body together at once for the
purpose of issuing new ones. Absence of the Secretary
and Chairman of the Executive Board gives the President
power to isssue signs, pass words, etc.. which shall remain
in force until the next quarterly meeting.

ARTICLE VI.

Any member known to expose any of the secrets
of this order shall be tried by the order and upon convic-
tion shall be fined and excluded.

ARTICLE VII.

Any member excluded from this order as provided
in Article VI shall not be allowed to rejoin within ninety-

J

50

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

nine years. Members are forbidden to associate with such
excluded members, and for violation of this provision
they shall themselves be excluded.

ARTICLE VIIL

This Union shall organize among its members a
joint Stock Company with a Capital Stock of One Thous-
and Dollars ($1000.00).

Section 1. — Each member shall purchase at least
one share at five dollars ($5.00). Members may pur-
chase as many shares as they can at five dollars ($5.00)
each.

Section 2 — When the Union shall have accumu-
lated Two Thousand Dollars ($2000) they may invest the
same in real estate for the Order.

Sec. 3 — All money paid in the Union shall be de-
posited in the Bank of Winchester, Ark.

Sec. 4 — No check shall be given on the Order, un-
less the bill be first presented to both the Supreme Com-
mander and President. All checks must be signed by Su-
preme Commander, President and Secretary.

ARTICLE IX.

A Grand Order meeting of this Union shall assem-
ble semi-annually at the Court Houses of respective coun-
tiies. The Order shall be composed of delegates from
subordinate Lodges.

Sec. 1 — Each subordinate Lodge shall elect at a
regular meeting three delegates to represent them at the
County seat twice a year.

ARTICLE X.

The Grand Lodge shall have six officers: Grand
President, Grand Vice-President, Grand Secretary, Grand
Treasurer, Grand Chaplain and an Executive Board of 9
members. These Grand officers shall hold office for one
year.

ARTICLE XI.
The business of this Grand Lodge shall be to fur-
ther advance the cause, uniting the race into a perfect
Union in various counties. And to levp special taxes on
subordinate Lodges for the purpose of purchasing land.
Deeds and Titles to lands bought must be made in the
name of the Order.

ARTICLE X

Any member who shall fail to pay his dues after his
arrears shall reach two months shall be suspended until
same is paid.

ARTICLE XIII

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS. 51

Sec. 1— This Order shall elect a Deputy who shall
hold office six months. He shall be a salaried officer and
it shall be his duty to organize clubs in the county. He sh ill
charge two two dollars ($2.00) per club organized, and the
same shall be applied to his salary. He shall report month-
ly to the Order.

Sec. 2— If any Deputy be found guilty of collecting
more than two dollars ($2.00) from any Lodge, he shall be
removed by the Executive Board and his vacancy filled by
appointment of the President, and the appointee shall ser ve
for six months from the day of appointment.

ARTICLE XIV
Each Lodge shall have a door keeper, and each member
must give to him the pass word before being allowed to en-
ter the Lodge. Any member forgetting the pass word must
remain outside until ordered admitted by the President.

BY LAWS

1. The Union shall be opened and closed with prayer
by the Chaplain.

2. Reading of minutes.

3. Reports of Committees,

4. Appointment of Committees.

5. Report of Treasurer,

6. Consideration of applications .

7. Receiving members

8. The president shall preside at all meetings of this order
and in his absence the Vice-President shall preside.

9. The President shall rule on all points of order and shall
appoint all committees not otherwise provided for.

10. No member shall speak more than twice on any ques-
tion Without consent of the body.

WE BATTLE FOR THE RIGHTS
OF OUR RACE

"IN UNION IS STRENGTH"

We Champion the Moral, Material, Political
and Intellectual Interests of Our Race.

CHAPTER X

SUMMARY AND CONTRAST.

Economic justice reached its awful climax in 1919 in the
final answer to two appeals made by working men, both
groups seeking through peaceful appeal to win better wage
and working conditions; both presenting their grievances
through chosen representatives, one to be rewarded by the
President of the United States with patient hearing and final
success, the other to suffer massacre at the hands of the mob
and the death penalty by courts of law.

The first group of working men was composed of the coal
miners whose appeal merged into a strike, the second group
was composed of colored farmers, whose appeal was fore-
stalled by a conspiracy against them, which, formed among
white land owners, to perpetuate the peonage complained
against, put to death by lynch law scores of colored farmers
and then prostituted the process of courts to their purpose,
sent seventy-five working men to the penitentiary for long
terms of imprisonment, and doomed twelve to die in the elec-
tric chair.

The bare statement of these facts is so shocking to the
sense of justice that it almost defies belief, but the statement
finds its complete corroboration in the burnt and pillaged
homes of the helpless colored farmers exiled or murdered and
the ninety victims who in hopeless despair look through the
penitentiary bars, twelve of them sentenced to death because
they dared, in this democracy of ours, to ask relief from eco-
nomic slavery.

The circumstances attending the two appeals were almost
as remarkable as were the final and widely differing results.
The miners made their appeals for higher wages accompany-
ing them with the implied threat of a strike. That appeal
was made to the Federal Government and was accorded a full
and patient hearing. Representative labor leaders were heard
by chosen representatives of the Government, who granted
relief in some cases and denied it in others. The miners, dis-
satisfied, retired from the conference to determine further
action.

Quick action by miners unions followed the report of the
miner leaders. A strike vote was called, and in overwhelming
numbers the miners decided to strike. The disastrous result

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS

5

of the proposed strike caused the government to counsel
against the militant methods threatened by the miners and
even the President of the United States from his sick bed
sent his appeal to the strikers in the interest of peace.

But the miners turned deaf ears to that appeal, closed their
eyes to the disastrous results of the impending strife, and
boasting of their power to throttle the nation into submis-
sion, went on a nation-wide strike and for a period of ten
days crippled transportation, deprived the public of food, shut
off lights, banked fires, thus threatening to freeze the helpless
public, and spread misery over every part of American soil.
Court injunctions were ignored a? a the Government, help-
lesss, yielded, and the President capitulated to the strikers.
The strike leaders, triumphant, called off the strike and the
miners' appeal was rewarded with success.

Shortly preceding these eventful days, another group of
laborers decided to make their appeal for better wages and
working conditions. They had suffered conditions which
denied them freedom to make fair contracts, forced them to
buy at exorbitant prices and sell their produce at rates amount-
ing almost to confiscation. Land tilled on shares barely
'brought the farmers money enough to pay their "findings,"
'supplied by the white land owner, leaving the toiler a pittance
jof his year's work, often leaving him in debt.

The Negro farmer hoped to share in the increased price of
cotton and the general prosperity of the Nation, and all during
1919 looked forward to a bountiful reward at harvest time.
Cotton, which in former years had sold for twelve and four-
teen cents a pound, had gone to forty-five cents and higher.
The sunshine of "Great Expectations" brightened the cabin
homes. But when harvest time came, the farmers' dream
failed, for profiteering land owners combined and no forty-five-
:ent prices were to be had. Farmers who would sell their
Cotton for twenty-five cents were paid the price. Those who
demanded the market price were unable to sell. Naturally
widespread unrest followed. The farmers resented the impo-
sition of the cotton buyers, and the buyers denounced the
"darkies" who dared to demand a square deal.
( Meanwhile, the Negro farmers decided to combine their
forces and employ a white lawyer to represent them in their
plea for better systems of contract, better wages, and better
working conditions. The result was an organization which
was of the nature of a secret fraternal order.

The farmers joined the lodge rapidly and the section in
and around Elaine was represented by nearly two hundred
farmers. The meeting places were the colored churches at

64 THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS

Elaine and Hoop Spur. Only three meetings had been held—
two ot them before the day of the "slaughte- of innocents."
which was the 30th day of September, 1919. The lodge em-
ployed Mr. Bratton, a white lawyer, to represent the* mem-
bers in their effort to secure the market price for their cotton,
to arrange for better contracts, to adjust their accounts with
the landowners and generally to safeguard their interests

I his labor movement among colored farmers did not pleas
the white landowners and the proposal of the farmers to ac
through a white lawyer constituted a menace to the profiteer-
ing practices of the white people of the neighborhood The
dissatisfaction of the white people found expression at first
m gentle hints that the Negroes were making a mistake ; these
were followed by warnings to colored people to let that lode"
business alone. Colored men knew of the success of while
men in labor movements, and. believing they would be pro-
claims continued their plans for presenting their

Then came the tragedy such as no labor movement in
2^i C ° U UM ry ^ as , e J ver witnessed. On the night of September
• dge was in sessi °n at the church in Elaine

about 150 men. women and children being present, five aut
mobile loads of white men stopped in front of the church and
immediately fired a volley of shots into the building Th
people rushed out only to meet vollev after volley from th
white mob. Several persons were killed, the others ran t
the woods or made their way home. One white man was shot
but whether he was killed accidentally by one of his fello
lynchers or was shot by some Negro during the fight is no
known.

Next day white men from all over Phillips County an
even from Mississippi set the church on fire, burning up sev
eral persons who were killed the night before, and then bega
a systematic man-hunt, killing colored men indiscriminately
driving others from their homes, and then taking from thes
abandoned homes the produce saved bv the farmers for thei
winter use. Thousands of dollars worth of property wa^
destroyed and stolen and cotton by the bale which the farmers
had refused to sell was boldly carted away by members of
the mob.

Next followed an even more deplorable act of this Arkan-
sas tragedy. Upon pretense that the white man who wag
killed on the night of the riot, and also the two next day wen
the victims of a conspiracy formed by colored people to kill
all the white people, over one hundred colored men were
arrested and thrown into jail. While they were thus con-

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS

55

ned their homes were robbed of every bit of property, so that
vhen those who were set at liberty, upon their promise not to
oin the lodge again returned, they were without food, shelter

>r clothes ! . . r i_ ».«.

To contrast the result of the plea of the miners for better
wages, with the results of the plea of the Arkansas colored
termers for identically the same thing, is to disclose to thinking
people a phase of democracy not safe for the world or any part
of it The miner? combined in unions, counseled together and
those representatives to present their pleas which earned
Ee threat of a strike. Their demands were not granted and
Ignoring the President's appeal, they struck. Iheir strike
Incnaced the lives, health, comfort and welfare of the entire
Lation They defied the courts and brought the President to
iiis knees. He yielded, the strike was won and the miners
lime into their own.

The colored farmers combined, counseled together, em-
ployed counsel to present their plea. They did not threaten
fo strike, did not strike, menaced nothing, injured nobody,

^Hundreds of them today are penniless, "Refugees from
<illaered homes" ; , . , , , . ,

llore than a hundred were killed by white mobs, for which
ot one white man has been arrested ;

Seventy-five men are serving life sentences in the peni-
entiary, and

Twelve men are sentenced to die.
If this is democracy, what is bolshevism?

CHAPTER XI

THE ARKANSAS SUPREME COURT ACTS

Since the foregoing was written, the Supreme Coun
of the State ©f Arkansas has acted on the appeal of th
twelve men awaiting electrocution in the penitentiary a
Little Rock. The decision against six of these men was re
versep and their cases were remanded to Phillips County fo
trial. This decision was rendered on the indictments' ai
not on the merits of the cases.

The cases of the six who were found guilty of murd
m the firs/ degree as charged in the indictment, were
firmed and they were thus left to be electrocuted accordin
to the sentence of the lower court. The entire country
waits the result of the decision.

, A T he s i x men who were sent back to Phillips Count
7 n> Su P reme Courts decision have been tried again
the Circuit Court and again sentenced to death—the fault 1 '
wording of the indictment this time having bean corre<
In sending out the repotr of the same the Associated Pres
dispatch made again the charge that those Negroes wer-
roganized to kill white people and seize their properly.
The dispatch reads as follows:

TRY SIX COLORED MEN

Second Trial of Accused Rioters in Arkansas.

j A , Helena Ark., May 3.-Six Negroes sentencd
death for alleged participation in the Phillips County ra
disturbance last October, faced retrial here today/ B
Helm, Negro recently arrested, also will be tried on a

degree murder charge. The retrial was ordered becaus
of faulty wording of the verdict.

Seventy five Negroes have been convicted of partici-
pation m the disorder, which resulted in the death of five
white persons and unknown number of Negroes, and which
were not controlled untill Federal troops were sent into the
q,js irisr.

. Of those convicted, 12 received sentence of death and 53
prison terms ranging from one to 21 years.

The disturbance according to evidence adduced at the

THE ARKANSAS Rt<"»iKl

57

riginal trials, was the premature outbreak of an insurrec-
tion followed by the Progressive Farmers and Houshold
Onion of of America, a Negro organization, the purpose of
which it is said was the annihilation of all whites aid the
seizure of their property/'

| The American thinking public cannot bring back the dead
hht it can open the prison doors and let these poor defenseless
m|en go tree. There must be enough justice in Arkansas to
tie < r rest until this great wrong is righted. Not until this is
doine and the peonage system ended can Arkansas take her
place among the brave and the free.

Governor Brough has started the movement. Let the
Cliristian, moral and lega! forces ''carry on" until these black
nwi are given their lives and their freedom and Arkansas
cilrs her skirts of this awful disgrace*. When black nv-n
cm. receive protect ion to life and liberty and propertv.
tl§>y will gladly give their labor for the prosperity of the
South. As long as this dastardly crime is condon ed,
shielded and encouraged by white men, black men whose
labor is needed for its development will avoid the state
and leave the South to ruin and desolation as they are
doing every day.

Meanwhile this booklet goes into the greatest court
in :he world and before the bar of public opinion pleads
the cases of these helpless men. Every reader a member
of chat bar and the white people of Arkansas — the hon-
est, law-abiding christian men and women of that state
— are the judges and jury to whom this appeal is made.
Tliey are urged for the honor of the state and its material
welfare to investigate the facts given in this book in an un

ptejudeced and impartial manner and if they are found to
be true — these people will know what steps to take to
right the great wrong done to these innocent hardwork-
ing men. If they are given freedom and opportunity,
protection of the law for life and liberty — they will prove
the greatest economic asset of the state. If not and thi3
outrage is approved by the great Court of white public

opinion in Arkansas, it will mean the lost of millions of
dollars to the state, because Negroes will not remain in
tlie state unless this great wrong is righted.

This is the answer to those who are honestly seek-
ing a plan to stop Negro emigration from the farms of
Arkansas. Put a stop to the plan of taking the fruit of the
Nero's labor as was done at Elaine and Hoop Spur last

THE ARKANSAS RIOTERS.

October and is being done all over Arkansas where Ne-
groes work the farms of white men.

BeI jeving that under normal conditions with the
black man's rights guaranteed him and the protection of
law for his hfe, liberty, and property, the South is th
best section of our country for the Neero the nriti <

wl hV/. 116 S ° Ut - h) T" * on * t0 ° SS' ^ cSopera

»ln Progressjve element of the White South in bring
mg about such a desideratum. '

CORPORAL LEROY JOHNSTON

-at-

4 4^4-4-** * ****4-**4-****4 " t"t-***4-

t The Arkansas Race Riot f

I.

Elaine and Hoop Spur, Arkansas
September 30th, Oct. 1, 2, & 3, 1919

«L

<:£ The Result of Which

«4 Scores of Negroes killed by white Rioters, 5 white & w

J5 men alleged to have been killed by Negroes; a half mil- jr

f lion dollars worth of Negroes' cotton stolen, 75 Negroes |

4 J* in Penetentiary for 21 years, 12 Negroes Sentenced to J*

<{ T death — not a single white man arrested! T*

< j> 4*

4 — »

<^ This book shows the riot was a conspiracy by the

<i white men to take the Negroes' cotton and not a conspir-
Jfa acy by Negroes to kill white people.

i MRS. IDA B. WELLS-BARNETT %

* t

3624 Grand Boulevard, Chicago, III. T*

4 *

% TERMS TO AGENTS: l N AN A £ $4.50 Per Dozen %
$ $

* Send $1.00 Today for Agent's Outfit, j

HUME JOB PRINT. 4014 South State Street. Chicago, Illinois. 4*